


Lighters

by Feyren



Series: Lighters [1]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: F/M, but don't we all want to see Kirihara at a bar, study abroad is code for get drunk in foreign country
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-06 22:18:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1874508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feyren/pseuds/Feyren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tachibana An goes to study abroad in America, and encounters Kirihara.</p><blockquote>
  <p>His laugh danced in her head like an echo in an empty room, bouncing off wall after wall after wall, and followed her on the train ride back to campus.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. August 25 - September 1

**Lighters, 1**

_breathing you in when I want you out_

_Spectrum,_ Zedd

* * *

Tachibana An watched New York City fly by from the window of her taxi cab.

New York was overwhelming and loud and  _bright,_ bright in a way that Tokyo wasn't. New York was a hash of eclectic colors that shouldn't belong together, colors and lights that clashed into and ran away from each other in energy and chaos, and An loved it. New York felt like electricity, instantaneous and blinding and all-encompassing, and An had always liked that—in cities, in people.

She didn't really have a singular reason for choosing the University of Tokyo. Very few people, she suspected, made major life decisions from one factor alone. Part of the reason she chose the university was for its reputation—she had the qualifications for it, she was accepted, and she saw no reason to turn it down. Part of the reason was because a number of her close friends also attended the university—friends from middle school and high school, and friends from tennis (Fuji-senpai and Momoshiro and Kamio and—). But if she were to be honest with herself, the fact that Tokyo University had recently announced its new exchange program for freshmen (spend a semester of freshman year in any one of these great cities, they promised, an experience like no other)—well. She had plenty of reasons for choosing the University of Tokyo, but that was probably her main one. And An chose New York City.

She had only done one study abroad program before this, a small month-long thing in Hong Kong back in her senior year of high school, where her host family spoke English but understood Japanese. It had been casual and fun, but this would be different—for an entire semester, she would actually be taking classes at Columbia University, alongside American students, living in their dorms and eating their food (which had better be as good as the rumors claimed, or she'd have a bone to pick with somebody).

It hadn't really kicked in yet, the realization that she was in college. That she wasn't in Tokyo anymore. That Kamio wouldn't show up at her door, asking if she wanted to get lunch, that she wouldn't run into Momoshiro on the street courts, that her brother wouldn't be there to banter with her. Her hair was longer and she'd lost the hair clips but sometimes she still felt fifteen, reckless-brave and  _dare-you-dare-me_ confident. She dressed like she was eighteen but looking out the window at the city, she felt like the Fudomine freshman in the sailor uniform, wide-eyed and a little lost, a little excited, surrounded by strange new buildings and strange new people who expected her to act more maturely than she felt.

The cab slowed to a halt, and An saw a vast expanse of buildings decorated with pale blue flags, regal and imposing. Students roamed the campus, walking from one building to another, largely ignoring each other, holding laptops and talking on their phones like they were too important and busy to say hello to the other students on campus. An swallowed, then fumbled for her wallet.

"Here you go; have a good day," she said in English, handing the cab fare to the driver. There was a pause. An panicked.

 _Oh God please tell me I said "here you go" and not "your head is remarkably bald" or something like that_ —

The cab driver smiled and thanked her as she got out, and she breathed a quick sigh of relief. The one apprehension she'd had about studying in New York for a year was her grasp of the English language. She got good grades and whatnot, but speaking English in class and speaking English to an American were completely different experiences. She could get away with ducking her head and a "just kidding" in class if she screwed up—she doubted her American professor (or even her American waiter) would grant her the same luxury.

She stood outside the building and checked to see that it matched the address on the paper she'd been mailed some weeks ago. "Me, living here," she breathed, and tried to imagine herself in the city for the next semester. She began marching determinedly toward the automatic doors.

_Okay. Okay, Tachibana An. All these Columbia kids are going to think you are the very embodiment of grace. You are going to walk in through those doors and be elegant like a… like a porpoise. Or like a porcupine. Or a –_

"Oof!" Something cold and hard collided with her face.

A door.

She had just walked into the door. It would seem that the doors weren't automatic after all.

Well, then.

A couple of students stared at her as she clutched her nose with her hands, swearing colorfully under her breath. "Nothing to see here," she grumbled. "Just your average college freshman walking into a door. Move along."  _If anyone else stares_ , An decided,  _I will tell them walking into doors is a cultural Japanese thing. And they will believe me. Maybe._

The lady at the front desk was far less judgmental, even though An's nose was probably swollen red and perhaps even crooked after that door-encounter. She hoped not. "Tachibana An," she said brightly. "Freshman class, room 618. I'm an international student."  _And I walk into doors, and think about porcupines, and…_

The lady returned her smile. "Welcome to Columbia University, An," she said, in a fluid English that An wished she could emulate. "Here are your room keys, and a name tag. Please put it on for the club fair later today, and enjoy your stay at the university."

An scribbled "An Tachibana" on the ' _hello, my name is'_ sticker, and pressed it to her blouse.  _You may as well have just given me a name-tag that says "Hello, my name is Freshman,"_ An thought, but kept it to herself, and looked for an elevator that would take her to the sixth floor.

Being eighteen was a strange thing. She had power, she was independent. People took her word as it was. Her parents didn't have to sign things. She could fail a math test and get away with it without her parents noticing. She could ask for the key to her new dorm room by herself, where she would be living with an unknown roommate, at an unknown university, in an unknown city. It was a sort of freedom she wasn't used to, a lack of familiarity that half-scared her and half-thrilled her, because new beginnings were fun and a little terrifying. For once she was Tachibana An, not  _daughter-of_  or _sister-of_  or  _teammate-of_  or _friend-of._

She was just... An.

She pulled out the key to her new room and opened the door to her dorm room.

* * *

Over the next couple of hours, An learned several things:

First, there were eight other students from the University of Tokyo who had chosen to attend Columbia for the first semester of their freshman year, and An's roommate, Haibara Haruki, a tall, willowy girl with sandy brown hair and glassy lavender eyes, was one of them.

Second, Columbia buildings had ridiculously fancy and stuck-up names (Lerner, Hamilton, Philosophy Hall…) to go with their ridiculously fancy and stuck-up architecture.

Third, the university dining hall food was mediocre at best.

And fourth, An needed to find a club to join  _fast_  if she wanted to make friends, because Columbia was a giant university in a giant city that apparently felt no need to foster any feeling of community.

She half-listened as Haruki told her stories about her puppy back home in Kyoto, and eyed the different buildings on campus. Haruki was a good conversationalist, a little quiet and meek, but sweet and friendly, and An liked her.

Classes hadn't officially started yet, but students were already beginning to move in for orientation week, where students were introduced to the university (and, perhaps more importantly, the clubs). A few people caught her eye here and there, but for the large part An paid them no mind, just drank in the campus, how much larger than life everything was, and thought,  _This was a good choice. Good like mochi ice cream._

"…seems like a good idea," Haruki was saying thoughtfully. "What do you think?"

An snapped to attention. "Sorry, what?" she blurted, then smiled sheepishly when Haruki gave her a look.

"I said," Haruki said, with exaggerated exasperation, "that we should go to the club fair today, if that would so please you, my dearest An-chan."

"An-chan works," An replied airily. "I also respond to Her Majesty, Her Royal Highness, and President of Catalonia."

Haruki laughed. "President of Catalonia might be a stretch. Maybe just start with Mayor of Barcelona?"

An liked that about Haruki—that she was willing to play along with An's silliness. Not that An was being silly, of course. President of Catalonia was serious business. "You have to aim high," she said, straight-faced. "I'm already eighteen. If I start at Mayor of Barcelona, how will I ever get to be President of Spain by the time I'm twenty?" She nodded decisively. "I'm going for President of Catalonia, running for President of Spain once I'm nineteen, and then conquering the Soviet Union before I turn thirty."

"Never mind that it doesn't exist anymore," Haruki said dryly.

"I will make it exist," An said seriously, "and then conquer it."

"You do that," Haruki told her, "and I will look for the debate team's stand at the club fair."

"I can help you with that," An offered.

"You sure? Not too busy conquering the Soviet Union?"

An scoffed. "I have at  _least_  a decade to do that. The club fair awaits." She paused, and gestured to the name-tag sticker on her shirt. "If I write 'Putin' instead of 'An Tachibana' on my name-tag, do you think people would give me more deference here, or kick me out of college?"

Haruki rolled her eyes fondly to the sky.

* * *

The next thing An did was look for a tennis court. Because never mind that it was August and a thousand and one degrees—if Columbia University wanted to call itself a top-tier university, it had better have tennis courts.

She had some difficulty navigating the trains by herself (because goddamnit  _why_  exactly Haruki needed to go get dinner at 5PM before the club fair instead of going to hunt for tennis courts with An was just  _incomprehensible and absurd_ ), but after some wrong stops and a bit of wandering, she found it—a giant dome building, with indoor tennis courts bright blue like the sea. Six cushioned hard courts, fantastic lighting ("Some of the best in the world," the coat-check boy had told her proudly), ball machines…

Her grip on her bag tightened. She wanted so badly to drop everything and just  _play_ , but it was getting close to seven and she didn't trust herself to find her way back to campus in a timely manner. She hadn't brought a racquet or tennis clothes either.

The soft, rhythmic  _thwack_ of the ball resounded in her ears. An scanned the courts, gave each player a brief once-over. Who was playing? Who was relevant?

From the looks of it, most of the players were members of the varsity tennis team. They sported university athletic wear, had excellent form. If An did decide to join the team, she would have competition. Good competition. She considered it. She hadn't committed herself to playing competitive tennis in college, especially during her study-abroad. Even if she did make the team, she reasoned (which was entirely possible, because she was pretty good, damn it), she would only be able to play with the team for a couple of months before she had to return to Japan.

On the other hand, it seemed kind of obnoxious to demand a court to herself when she wasn't a member of the varsity team, with no competitive matches to worry about. And she wasn't sure that the varsity players would be willing to play a pick-up match with her, either. An doubted "captain of my high school tennis team in Japan" meant much here.

_If I were the president of Catalonia, however, they would have to defer to me, wouldn't they? Maybe that's what I should be doing with my life. President of Catalonia. Also president of sea turtles._

There was a doubles match going on in Court 1, between two pairs of women presumably on the women's varsity team. They were okay, An decided. Good players, but nothing special.

An knew special.

Her brother was special—was competing in Australia, working with professional trainers and looking to break into the pro leagues. Her friends were special—Fuji who, despite choosing not to pursue tennis professionally, was remarkably talented. Tezuka who, although she wasn't really  _friends_ with him, was causing a ruckus in Germany with his tennis. And Echizen—she wasn't even sure what he was doing these days, competing in a tournament here, a tournament there, this country that country, this month that time, all the while sleeping through English class (said Momoshiro, who was also something else, even if he was just a street-courts tennis partner and friend to her).

She felt a pang of nostalgia and longing. New York suddenly seemed like such a faraway place.

_You didn't come here to miss home. Get a grip. How are you going to be president of Catalonia with that attitude?_

She took a deep breath and looked at the rest of the courts.

Court 2 was a singles match between a boy and a girl. Court 3 was being used for some sort of tennis lesson. Court 4 was another doubles match. Court 5 was empty. Her eyes stopped on Court 6.

Two boys were playing a singles match. One boy, with light, wavy hair was playing, playing well, but very obviously losing. He was out of breath and exhausted, and the look on his face suggested he wanted the match to be over. He bent forward, his head hung, panting as he held his racquet, his knuckles white.

An couldn't see the other boy clearly—tall, she noticed, and dark, curly hair. He stood impatiently on the other side of the court, waiting for the first boy to catch his breath. When he did, the second boy served, and it was a  _good serve_ —a great serve, really something else. Maybe it was the way he carried himself: a little differently from the other players in the fitness center, with the confidence of someone who won all the time and knew he would win again. An recognized that cockiness.

He played with energy—energy like New York, like electricity, like brightness, like a hash of eclectic colors that shouldn't belong together, colors and lights that clashed into and ran away from each other in energy and chaos, instantaneous and blinding and all-encompassing.

She liked energy.

Again, the overwhelming urge to play. To grab a racquet and tap the boy on the shoulder and say, "Play a match with me."

The match ended quickly—a bit too quickly. "Good game, kid," the first boy said, still catching his breath. "You're really amazing."

"Thanks," said the second boy, and An did a double-take at his accent. Was he Japanese?

The second boy walked off the courts and toward a pile of miscellaneous supplies in the corner—towels and water and a tennis bag that presumably were his, and when he glanced up, he met her eyes. She did a double-take, and forgot to look away.

An got a good, clear look at his face and swore under her breath.

 _You_ must  _be kidding me._

Green eyes, green like electricity, electric like New York City, electric like—

Like Kirihara Akaya.

(But Kirihara wasn't electric. He wasn't green. He wasn't a current but a thunderstorm, was violence, wild and manic and dangerous and  _cruel and red_ —)

He held her gaze for a second, and she stared back, dumbfounded by her luck (or lack thereof—why the  _fuck_  was he in New York City?), suddenly at a loss.

Then he arched an eyebrow, and walked right over to her.

_Aw, fuck._

He had grown taller since she had last seen him. They hadn't interacted much since that one incident when they were thirteen, and she watched him as he watched her, as he loped over to her. His cheeks had lost their childlike roundness, and his body was leaner, surer, like he had grown into it. His eyes were still green, so green, green like absinthe and electricity and it sparked the air, set it crackling.

The other people in the fitness center were staring and she didn't know why. She cleared her throat. The president of Catalonia and sea turtles wouldn't be made to feel uncomfortable by one stupid green-eyed boy, even if he was good at tennis.

"Hey." In the moment that she wasn't paying attention, he had positioned himself a foot away from her. She didn't respond.

"Hey," he said again, sounding irritated. "What are you staring at?" His tennis was (begrudgingly) incredible, but his English was mediocre at best. She wondered why he was speaking to her in English instead of Japanese. Did he not recognize her?

She debated between punching him in the face and turning 180 degrees and walking away, then settled for, "Just admiring how horrible your English is."

She said it in Japanese, and Kirihara arched an eyebrow. "You're Japanese?"

An rolled her eyes. "No, I'm a fairy bestowed with psychic powers that allow me to speak in any language I choose. Today, I chose Japanese. You can consider yourself a lucky kid, 'cause your English was awful."

"Kid?" he repeated, amused. "Really?" He stepped closer to her until he towered over her. "How old are  _you_ , twelve?"

"I'm eighteen," An snapped, "but at least I don't act like a toddler."

Kirihara snorted. "Okay. Well, at least I don't stare at people while they're playing matches. Like a stalker. Was my tennis that awe-inspiring? Or was it my dashing good looks? Maybe both?"

His tennis was pretty impressive, but like hell she was going to admit  _that_. "You need to get a grip on reality," she blustered. "Do you go around asking people if they find you attractive? You must be a pretty desperate kid. Don't get much action, do you?"

He looked like he was about to reply, but the words seemed to catch in his throat, because he paused. The ensuing silence (which felt like hours, even though it was probably a couple of seconds) was incredibly awkward. An shifted uncomfortably. "How'd you know I'm Japanese?" he suddenly asked.

So he really didn't recognize her. Maybe that was for the best—she had no intention of seeing him again, and she had no intention of making a scene here, either. She leaned in, sneered, and hoped that it was intimidating as hell. "Consider it a lucky guess."

For a second, his face was blank. He looked at her intently, as if debating what to do with her, this petite, feisty little girl—then his eyes stopped. On her name-tag. "An Tachibana," he read, slowly, deliberately, rolling the sounds on his tongue as if he were tasting her name. What was that in his eyes? Recognition? Annoyance? Amusement?

"Yes," she said stiffly. "So you can read. How nice." Then, "Do you remember me?"

He shrugged, a loose rolling of the shoulders. "Yeah."

She waited. Waited for some reference to her team, her brother,  _something_.

But all he said was, "You're from Tokyo, yeah? What, couldn't get enough of me in Japan so you followed me to America?"

An sputtered indignantly.  _This_ _kid...!_  Then she inhaled, and gave him the brightest, most sarcastic smile she could muster. "It must be fate. I was  _just_  thinking to myself how great it would be if I were to run into the world's biggest jerk to amuse me for the next few minutes, and suddenly there you were."

Kirihara grinned. "I also hold the title for world's best tennis player and world's prettiest eyes."

She had dozens of questions and wonderings—why was he in New York? Why was he playing tennis at Columbia University's fitness center? Was he a student here? Was he alone? Didn't he remember what he did to her brother? But she bit them all back, kept her eyes hard, and glared at him the best she could.

He stared back, waiting for her to finish her question. His eyes were like lighters.

The thought invaded and penetrated her mind, refused to leave.  _Eyes like lighters eyes like lighters lighters lighters. Green like electricity like New York like_ him.

And faintly, in the back of her head:

_Damn it, Haruki had the right idea getting dinner. I'm starving._

She turned on her heel and stormed out of the fitness center.

"Rude," he called after her.

"Fascist," she called back, without turning around—because, hey, that was the first thing she thought of.

His laugh danced in her head like an echo in an empty room, bouncing off wall after wall after wall, and followed her on the train ride back to campus.


	2. September 10 - September 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An meets some fun people -- one of whom Kirihara is not very fond of.

**Lighters, 2**

_take a chance, let your body get a tolerance_

_I Don't Care_ , Fall Out Boy

* * *

Haruki liked her new roommate, but sometimes she didn't quite know what to make of her. An-chan, who switched from talking about the Catalonian referendum to her brother ("He's amazing," An had told her with a conviction so great that Haruki felt convinced by her words alone) to sea turtles. An-chan, who went from excitedly searching for the university tennis courts to returning to campus grouchily, muttering something about fascism under her breath. An-chan, who veered off to find a wall to hit her head against when she was told during the club fair that the only tennis courts near the university were the ones at the fitness center she'd found earlier.

_Ladies and gentlemen,_  Haruki thought wryly, as An enthusiastically debated the future of unicorns in the state of the union with the captain of the women's basketball team.  _Ladies and gentlemen, meet my roommate._

Weird as she was (and Haruki liked that about her), An was undeniably fun, bright, warm. She soaked up smiles like sunshine and returned them like sunshine too. She was outgoing and approachable, and even though English wasn't her first language, by the end of the club fair she had made a solid circle of new friends.

And she undeniably charmed the entire tennis team, whether she wanted to or not. Haruki thought An was always warm, always cheery, but something  _lit up_  when she talked about tennis. It was like everything else was  _other_ , and tennis was _her_ —Haruki had never personally experienced that sort of enthusiasm for anything in particular, but the way An talked about tennis made Haruki want to try it, too. The tennis team insisted that An sign up for their newsletter, and promised that they would let her know when tryouts were ("You should definitely try out," they told her. "We could really use someone like you," they assured her). An herself had seemed a bit hesitant when she heard that their tennis practices were held at the fitness center, and informed them that she was only here for a semester (but "That's not important; just try out anyway," they said).

So An signed up for the tennis team's newsletter.

The only other time An lit up like that, like fireworks and bonfires and warm, warm things ( _hot with energy but I won't burn_ ) _,_ was when she talked about her life in Japan.  _This,_  Haruki could understand. She missed her parents back home, too; she missed her puppy, she missed her friends. But An didn't just talk about her family (although she talked about her brother a lot in particular, who was apparently competing in the pro circuits in Australia— _the tennis obsession must run in the family_ , Haruki thought); she talked about her friends back home, people named Fuji and Kamio and Momoshiro and Echizen and Ibu. She talked about them with a kind of special fondness, and Haruki would smile and nod and try to follow along, because there was no stopping An when she started rambling like that, and Haruki didn't really mind.

An-chan, who loved tennis and her brother and her friends and Japan. An-chan, who loved adventure. An-chan, who was like sunshine. An-chan, who came back from the tennis courts a little grouchy, a little pensive, a little uncomfortable.

Haruki shook her head in something like exasperation and wonder.

* * *

An found that many of the international students of each country tended to stick together, but decided she didn't want that. Not that she wanted to avoid the international students—but what was the point of studying abroad if you only stuck with people who spoke your language, were from your country, your culture, your ideology? If she spent her entire semester sticking only with the other students from the University of Tokyo, she may as well have just stayed in Tokyo.

So An smiled at people as they walked past her on campus. She sat next to strangers at the dining halls and struck up conversation. She left the door to her and Haruki's room open, called out greetings to people who lived on her floor, and soon she had a strong circle of friends—Americans, Argentinians, French, British. She anticipated getting to know the tennis players on the women's varsity team, too, and soon, New York started to feel—while not  _home,_ at least  _familiar_.

An walked into her literature class a few minutes early. It was a large lecture class set in an even larger, ostentatious building—the type of building she imagined Atobe Keigo would appreciate (and perhaps own. Now wouldn't that be interesting? What if he owned the university? Some food for thought). Students opened their laptops (who needed laptops to take notes during a  _literature_  class?) and sipped their coffee, acting more important than they were or needed to be, considering most of the students in the class were freshmen. An's face brightened when she recognized a classmate, who waved her over.

"Hi, An," Caitlin-san greeted her.

"Hey, Caitlin. Did you finish the reading for today?"

Caitlin-san was a student from somewhere in America—which state exactly, An couldn't remember—who lived next door to An and Haruki, and who was also in her literature class. (Although she called them by their first names to their faces, internally, An couldn't help but add honorifics to their names. So for now, they were Caitlin-san, Brian-kun, Maria-chan…)

"Define  _'finish,'"_  Caitlin-san joked, a little self-deprecatingly, a little sheepishly.

"Some American you are, if you need an international student to define stuff for you," An said in mock-exasperation. "'Finish.' The act of completing an action or task. Synonyms for 'finish' include complete, terminate, cease…"

"Oh, I definitely ceased my reading," Caitlin-san laughed. "I just didn't complete it."

An grinned at her. "I feel you." Because really, who  _could_  bear to read fifty pages of  _Wuthering Heights_  in a night? She sat in the seat next to her and sighed exaggeratedly. "Such is the life of a college student. It's a Friday afternoon. We should be out in the city, hitting the clubs, exploring the ghettos, getting into gang fights…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, that escalated quickly. I'm not sure you could handle a gang fight, An."

"Do you doubt my street rep?" An stood up and in front of Caitlin-san as if to tower over her. Never mind that the girl was much taller than An. "Do you  _doubt_ my  _street rep_?"

"Oh, no, not at all," Caitlin-san said seriously. "I'm sure you have great street rep. People probably cower when you walk past them."

"Damn straight," An said, and Caitlin-san grinned.

"But the gangs of Columbia University probably have more manpower than you do," Caitlin-san continued. "You know how vicious the gangs are at preppy universities. What if they injure you with their boatshoes? And preppy bowties? What then?"

"They may have bowties, but I have sea turtles," An said decisively. "And that trumps everything."

"Ah, the vicious power of sea turtles." Caitlin-san nodded wisely. "Indeed, you may be right that you have the upper hand there."

"Ladies."

A voice at the front of the classroom brought them to attention, and with a jolt, An realized that she was still standing, that she and Caitlin-san were the only ones talking, that the class was staring at them, and that the professor had arrived and was looking at them with a look of bafflement, annoyance, and amusement. "As much as I would like to allow you to continue your discussion on sea turtles, I will have to ask you to continue this discussion  _after_ class."

An sat down and ducked her head. "Yes, sir." She and Caitlin-san shared a secret smile. Continue after class, indeed.

The professor began to drone on about Emily Brontë, and how they would study  _Wuthering Heights_ for most of the semester and wasn't Romantic literature just  _great_ , while An began to doodle in her notebook. First she drew herself. Then her brother, a stick figure wielding a tennis racquet standing on a circle labeled 'Australia.' And as the hour passed on, she drew each members of each team she could remember—Kikumaru, a stick figure jumping in the air. Fuji, a stick figure with blades for eyes ( _blades like ice don't touch it burns_ ), which she illustrated with two straight, horizontal lines. Atobe, a stick figure on a throne (that looked more like a stool the way she drew it, but  _shh_ ). The lecture was almost over by the time An got to drawing Rikkai, and she thought of Kirihara, with his electric green eyes and  _dare you dare me_  smile. Her hand stopped, and the lines she was doodling slowed to a halt.

How did one put electricity to paper? How did one illustrate energy?

_How do I draw Kirihara Akaya_?

She thought of the boy she'd seen yesterday—a boy, a  _boy_ , eighteen years old (was he even eighteen yet? When was his birthday?), just a boy playing tennis. And his eyes weren't red when she saw them, but green like absinthe, like electricity, like  _dare you dare me._ She thought of their banter. She had cut it short, but she hadn't needed to, really, hadn't really  _wanted_  to.

(But she did, because he was horrible, because he did horrible things on a horrible team and now he was  _here_ , in New York City, in America, for some godforsaken reason—)

And then she thought of the boy with red eyes, with maniacal laughter and something dangerous in his eyes—and that danger had never really left his eyes, not really. It was always there, and it was there when An last saw him, too— _dare you dare me_ , it said,  _I dare you to dare me._

Five years had made him older, stronger, leaner, taller, sharper in feature and more mature. He was a boy on the verge of being a man, dancing at the cusp of adulthood, waltzing on its balance beam. Five years had done that for him, but it had yet to remove the danger from his eyes.

_Who are you, Kirihara Akaya_?

An wondered.

* * *

The summer sun beat down on the pavement like a relentless wave of well-placed smashes, one after another, following An no matter where she stepped. She was already beginning to sweat, and she hadn't even changed into exercise clothes yet. The strap of her tennis bag wore into her shoulder, leaving behind small, red, gridded indents on her skin.

The dome of the tennis center was large and dark in comparison to the outside heat. The courts were a cool splash of blue to her eyes, and she bounced a little in anticipation as she speed-walked to the changing rooms, flashing her ID card and a sunny smile to the security guard as she sped past.

It would be the first time she picked up her racquet in about a month. She hadn't had time to play while packing for her study-abroad—or, for that matter, preparing to go to college. The last game she played had been a pick-up match with Momoshiro and a few friends from high school, and the feeling of gripping a tennis racquet, of feet pounding the courts, swinging her arms and that satisfying  _thwack_  when the ball hit just the right spot against her racquet strings… it burned like a brand in her mind and it drove her to walk faster, faster, faster to the changing room, change  _faster, go go go_ and  _play,_ damn it, and maybe this stupid city will feel like home—

A girl tapped her on the shoulder. She was tall, slim, with long hair tied back in a ponytail, and she looked at An intently. Her smile was friendly and even familiar, like she was waiting for An to recognize her. She stood next to a boy with dark eyes, handsome but not too handsome, handsome like he knew it, and the boy watched her as the girl continued, "Hey, I'm Maria. We met earlier today. You signed up for our newsletter. I'm on the girl's tennis team. Do you want to play with me? Just a rally."

An didn't remember her. There had been so many girls—eight? Nine? Ten? Probably more, since the non-regulars had shown up too to help promote the club. But— "That would be great," An beamed.

Maria nodded to the boy, who didn't bother introducing himself, just nodded back and stepped aside as the girls took the last available court. An didn't pay him enough attention to watch him watch her.

She wasn't as tall as she had hoped to be at eighteen. She wasn't  _short_ , either, but sometimes she wished she were tall like Inui from Seigaku, or Ootori from Hyotei, so she could hit without having to jump and reach quite so much. Maria, though—she was tall. She sent shots flying right over An's head, and An grimaced a little as she raced to the back of the court, because somehow those shots ended up  _right_  on the baseline and like hell she was going to lose to hits like that on her first day at the university courts. (Not that they were keeping score, but An somehow felt that Maria was the type of person who  _would,_  who wanted to see where An was at, if An deserved the attention that the women's tennis team had so eagerly heaped on her. And, well, maybe An didn't, but it certainly wouldn't be because she was playing bad tennis.)

They rallied back and forth for what was probably a half hour. Maria hit hard, and An hit back harder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the boy watching—her? Or Maria? The thought flitted around the back of her mind, and when Maria stopped hitting and An stepped back to catch her breath, the boy stepped forward, said something to Maria, then smiled a friendly smile to An and passed her a towel. "That was great," he told her. "You're really good. Are you new here? Where are you from?"

"Japan," An said, taking the towel and dabbing at the sweat beading her forehead. "How about you?"

"Oh, I'm a New Yorker," he said. "My name's Kenny. It's nice to meet you."

"An," she replied. "Nice to meet you too."

Maria stepped over too, hopping over the net, and Kenny fell silent. "That  _was_  great," she agreed. "You've clearly played before. Are you going to try out for the team? We'd love to have you." Her smile was friendly, but there was challenge laced in her friendliness.

_What's your next move?_

An knew what this was. She didn't grow up here, but she secretly suspected that this was a truth universal everywhere—the social hierarchy, the social order, the  _who are you where do we place you_ that was defined by a tennis match in her social scene, but perhaps not in New York's. She couldn't intimidate people with smiles the way some people could (Fuji Syusuke and Yukimura Seiichi came to mind), and she wasn't sure that she wanted to intimidate Maria, either. Enemies weren't really her thing.

(She was, however, quite fond of turtles and cream soda.)

But she smiled back anyway, a bright-too-bright little thing that she hoped conveyed the confidence she laced in her words: "Yeah, and I'll see you on the courts sometime soon, too."

Maria took a second to consider this, stared back at her for a second too long. Then her smile softened, smoothed away its edge when she replied, "That would be great."

(And An marveled at the oddity that was American college women.)

"Right, well, if we're quite done here," Kenny laughed, bumping Maria lightly with his hip. He turned to face An. "I would  _really_  like to get to know you." The smile he gave her was a little too mischievous. He held her gaze for a little too long. His dark eyes were a little too intense and they bore into hers. They were obscure and opaque and they focused on her like she was a page in a book, a word on a page, a letter in a word that he could see, he could read. "I'm the vice-captain of the men's varsity team here. So I thought…" He laughed. "Y'know, we could talk over coffee, establish some connections. Connections are a big deal here, and you're clearly going to be a big deal on the team. We should get to know each other."

An didn't want to antagonize him, but at the same time, she suspected his intentions. So she did what she always did in situations like these—wiped any sort of confusion from her face and smiled back breezily. "Maybe. What do you have in mind?"

He seemed amused. "Well, there's a Starbucks just down the street we could go to. I have a couple of hours before my next class anyway, so a coffee would be great. If you want to come, I mean." He was backtracking. He didn't want to seem desperate. An knew the game. She just didn't especially want to play it.

And the truth was she didn't especially want to go to the coffee shop with him either. She wanted to play another match and then go home and watch Game of Thrones in all its Japanese subtitled glory. But Maria was looking at her expectantly, already putting her tennis racquet away, and this kid was vice captain, and from the way Maria deferred to him it seemed he had a lot of sway. Even though he certainly didn't seem like much of a hotshot.

_Part of this whole making friends thing, right?_

She sighed. "Yeah, why not. Not like I was going to do anything exciting, anyway."

His grin widened. "You think I'm exciting? We're gonna get along great."

* * *

And fifteen minutes later, still in her tennis clothes, she found herself sitting on a rather uncomfortable wooden stool holding a Frappuccino. Kenny was asking her all the standard questions ("how do you like it on campus? Do you know what you want to major in yet? Any clubs besides the tennis team? What's Japan like?") and she answered them with all the standard answers (what was this, an interview?), except when he asked—"And what are you thinking of doing after college?"

She had no idea, and she laughed and shrugged it off and said as much. Was she supposed to have any idea of what she wanted to do? Probably not, since half of her friends were still undecided on their majors. But a lot of them knew what  _areas_  they were interested in—in sciences, medical studies, legal studies…  _But here I am, studying at a college that I don't even go to for freshman year… I wonder if I can major in idiocy._

(She imagined showing up to a job interview, beaming at the interviewer, and introducing herself: "Hi, my name is Tachibana An. I major in undecided with a minor in idiocy. And how are you this fine morning?" With an introduction like that, any firm would be fighting to get her.)

There was a pause in the conversation, and An realized that Kenny had said something. "Sorry, what?"

He smiled good-naturedly, and again, there was that distinct feeling of too-bright, too-nice, of something that couldn't quite be classified as insincerity but certainly couldn't be classified as sincerity, either. "I asked," he said, "if you have any exciting plans this Thursday night."

"It's only Monday. I don't know what I'm doing on Thursday yet."

"Thursdays are pretty important here. In most colleges, Thursdays are party-nights, because we don't have class on Fridays. Do you have class on Fridays?"

She arched an eyebrow and answered honestly, "No, but regardless of what your Thursdays are, chances are that I'm going to watch Game of Thrones with my roommate and tuck in early."  _And also fight dragons. Because what else do girls do?_

His laugh was indulgent. "That sounds like a great plan. But hey, if you're free—"

"Kenny, hey."

_That voice_.

She turned around and saw Kirihara, in a burgundy T-shirt and jeans, holding some energy drink, flipping a racquet with his free hand.

"Akaya!" Kenny returned, with the voice of someone who had just seen his best friend. And An would have believed that they were friends, except for the utterly disinterested look on Kirihara's face. He approached the table with slow, languid steps, the glare of his green eyes lessened by half-hooded eyelids. He looked almost like he would fall asleep standing up, but he walked over anyway, and barely spared a glance for An. Kenny stood up and gave him what An supposed was a guy-hug. "Where you been?" He turned to An. "This is Akaya. He's one of my bros."

Kirihara flicked his eyes up towards the ceiling in something between contempt and boredom at the word "bro," and An snorted quietly.

"He's an  _amazing_  tennis player," Kenny continued. "They handpicked him from—"

"That goes without saying," Kirihara said.

Kenny's smile looked forced. "Right. We've been trying to get him to join the team, but—"

Whoa. Backtrack. "You're a studenthere?" An asked disbelievingly. "Here?"

Kirihara smirked. "I'm an affiliate. What? Did you think you were the only special snowflake in all of Japan who got to study abroad?"

Well, first off—"I am the  _specialest_ snowflake, and you'd do well to remember that. I don't see you in any of my classes. Are you taking classes here?"

He shrugged. "No. I'm here on a tennis scholarship for a semester, and then I'm going back to Kanagawa." The smirk returned. "And really? You don't look that special." He gave her a once-over as if he were sizing her up. "Just kind of tiny."

"Tiny?" she repeated indignantly.

"And sweaty," he added. "You should probably shower."

She was about to get up and smack him upside the head when Kenny interrupted, "So you two know each other?"

"Yeah," they replied simultaneously, Kirihara without inflection, An with  _quite a bit_ of inflection. She gave him a look.  _So, how do I go about introducing you? "Hey guys! Meet the kid who put my brother in a hospital when I was thirteen. Pocket full of sunshine, this one."_

Kirihara looked back, then looked at Kenny. "Don't you have somewhere you need to be?" The question was directed at the dark-eyed boy, who looked faintly annoyed. Their eyes met for all of two seconds.

"Do I?" Kenny posed rhetorically, but more or less acquiesced. "I'll see you later, An." He gave her one last meaningful look. "Later, Akaya."

Kirihara didn't react. An gave Kenny a bland little smile and wave as he left, while her mind tried to comprehend what had just occurred—the vice-captain of the men's tennis team, being shooed away by some green-eyed punk who wasn't even an official student. Kirihara's posture, relaxed and languid, so lethargic as to be almost dream-like, while Kenny shuffled out the café with a tenseness in his shoulders it was almost tangible. The top dog of the pack. The alpha male. What did Kirihara have that Kenny didn't? What did Kirihara have  _now_ , that he didn't have five years ago?

He began to turn away, and An grabbed his arm. "Hey," she snapped. "I don't know what you think you're pulling, but that was rude and just—bizarre."

He sneered. "Like you didn't want to be rid of that creep. What were you guys talking about? Grass growing?"

And—it was true. They hadn't been talking about grass growing, but she hadn't been particularly enjoying that conversation either. There was something weird—something  _off_ —about Kenny. But, "That doesn't justify walking into a conversation and shooing someone away and acting like you own the place!"

"What makes you think I don't own the place?"

"Is that even a question?"

"Your English must be pretty bad if you can't even tell what questions are," Kirihara said glibly.

"You're—!"

"Yes, I  _am_ charming and handsome and perfect." Kirihara nodded decisively. "Not that I needed you to tell me that."

"Perfectly ridiculous is what you are," An accused. "The jet lag must be getting to you because I don't think you have your head on straight right now."

"I think my head is perfectly straight. Maybe even perpendicular."

An cocked her head, trying hard to hide a grin. "Looks pretty elliptical to me."

"Really? I've always been told it looked trapezoidal. Trapezoidal heads are really regal, you know. Only people with character have trapezoidal heads."

An snorted. "If by 'character' you mean 'ego complex,' then maybe." She took a moment to look at him. He was grinning at her, and that grin was so familiar.

(he was dancing on the cusp of adulthood

waltzing on its balance beam)

She caught herself grinning back, and stopped. Why was she grinning at this green-eyed boy? Why was she even talking to him? (Why was it fun?) "Anyway, what business is it of yours who I talk to?"

He shrugged, a careless rolling of the shoulders. "You looked bored. I, being benevolent—in addition to being handsome and charming—thought I'd intervene. You should be thanking me."

"Did you stalk me here?" An asked, straight-faced, and took a sort of indulgent pleasure when Kirihara sputtered.

"You've got some ego, Tachibana," he told her. "Are you trying to tell me something? That you're being stalked by someone? Or that you are a stalker? Or that you want to be stalked? Or that you want to become a stalker?"

"Chatty little thing, this one," An said, to no one in particular.

He looked at her like he was drinking her in, and An shifted a bit. When he finally moved, it was a deliberate step towards her, closer closer closer farther farther farther. He walked towards her and then he walked past her. His grin was beaming, his eyes like green static as he said, "I think you've delayed me from tennis practice long enough."

And then, in a much quieter voice, so that only she could hear: "Stay away from Kenny."

The door opened and closed, and like a lightning storm, Kirihara was gone.


	3. September 15 - September 19

**Lighters, 3**

_little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting_

_Here Comes the Sun,_ Beatles

* * *

_Thwack._

That should have been the only sound in the dome, ricocheting off walls and around the courts, the only sound in An's mind, but it wasn't.

_Thwack._

It should have been the only sound, because An was hitting lightly with Maria, and the entire women's varsity team was watching, and they should have been paying attention to her hits, but they weren't.

_Thwack._

They should have been paying attention to her forehand, her backhand, her serves, her smashes. They should have been paying attention to her footwork. But they weren't.

"...ran off," someone whispered. "Akaya intervened."

"But Akaya doesn't talk to  _anybody_."

"That's not true."

"You know what I mean!"

"…heard they knew each other—"

An's eye twitched as she ran to the net to return a particularly inconvenient volley.  _If they're not going to watch me play, they shouldn't be here,_ she thought stubbornly.  _I could not give less of a fuck that they are college varsity team regulars._ Somewhere in the back of her mind—perhaps not that far back—was the thought that tennis was something special, something that was being disrespected by gossip on the courts. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the reverence for tennis that her brother had ingrained in himself and in her—that on the courts, during any match, tennis was  _self_  and anything else, anything that wasn't tennis, was  _other_. And  _other_  didn't belong. Not on the courts.

So she played her tennis. And with every whisper she heard, every time she heard " _Akaya_ " or " _Kenny_ " whispered, she returned the shot harder, faster, fiercer, until the ball burned into the court with all the annoyance she hoped they saw on her face. If it weren't for the fact that there were at least three other matches being played in the dome, she would have yelled at them, scolded them, maybe even tossed a tennis ball at the gaggle of college-aged girls, older and wiser than her but somehow not mature enough to keep from discussing An's little incident with Kenny and Kirihara during a tennis match.

It was becoming increasingly clear to her that at least half of the university tennis team didn't take tennis as seriously as An's friends in Japan did. The girls showed up to the courts in makeup and jewelry, chewing gum and talking on their phones. They rolled their eyes when assigned extra laps, from what she could gather, most of the girls had skipped practice for one reason or another. She imagined what her brother would have to say, what Ibu and Kamio would have to say, what Fudomine, which had worked itself up from scratch, what Seigaku, which had fought tooth and nail for its Nationals title, what Rikkai, with its fierce codes of law, would have to say about a team of glib girls who liked tennis skirts more than the tennis. And each time An entered the dome and approached the courts, she saw them, saw them seeing  _her_ , talking about her—

All because of a stupid boy with electric eyes.

The reason she was the talk of the team was because she was friends with a green-eyed punk. And damn, if that wasn't annoying.

Maria returned her hits with some difficulty, and if nothing else An appreciated the concentration on Maria's face, appreciated that even if Maria couldn't hit as well as she could, Maria at least appreciated that tennis was self, that gossip was other. She appreciated that a lot.

When the match ended, Maria handed her a towel, and An took the moment to whisper—"Why is this so interesting?"  _Have they never seen a male before? Do they live in a cave?_

_Is Kirihara that interesting?_

Maria shrugged. "Because you're good, I guess. They're all waiting for your try-out."

"That's not what I mean."

"And," Maria added, "you're friends with Akaya."

"But why is that…" An struggled to phrase her thoughts in a non-insulting manner. "Why does that matter? Why do they even know him? "

Maria arched an eyebrow. "Jealous?"

An punched her lightly in the arm. "I wish they liked  _me_ as much."

"It's not that they like him. I mean, they do, but…" Maria shrugged again. "Hot foreign boy comes to America, is labeled some sort of tennis prodigy, and looks sexy as hell in exercise clothes. What else could you want?"  _A semi-decent personality_ was on the tip of An's tongue, but she kept it to herself. "Plus there's that fancy scholarship he's here with. Free housing, all travel expenses covered, and he's here training with two of the best coaches in the nation in one of the best facilities in the city. To get all that when he's just eighteen—that's really something."

"So he's a celebrity here?" An inquired, incredulous. How could anyone revere Kirihara Akaya anywhere? Ever?

"He's kind of a big deal. And he doesn't really talk to a lot of people either. The men's team has been trying to recruit him since he set foot here—which hasn't been that long. He's been here since May, but all he's done in the last few months is practice with his trainers. It's like he's friendly with everyone, but not really friends with them, y'know?"

"Yeah, because he's an asshole," An began, but Maria just smiled a little and wiped her forehead with a towel.

"I don't think he's that bad," Maria said. "Do you?" An stayed silent, and Maria continued, "And then there's Kenny."

 _Stay away from Kenny._ Why had Kirihara told her that? Who was he to tell her to stay away from anyone? "What about him?" An asked, her voice deceptively casual. She reached for her water bottle.

"He's kind of a flirt," Maria said slowly, "but it's more than that, I think. I don't really know—he and I aren't very familiar with each other."

"Really? But I thought—"

"Yeah, that's the thing with Kenny. He  _acts_  like he's really familiar with everyone."

An thought back to Kenny's interaction with Kirihara. He had seemed so eager, but Kirihara's apathy had been almost palpable.

But she suspected there was more to the tension than just that.

"Anyway, how do you know him?" Maria asked curiously. "Akaya, I mean. Are you two friends?"

_Hey everyone, meet the kid who put my brother in a hospital! We're real chummy, the two of us. Two peas in a fucking pod._

An rolled her eyes. "Yeah, something like that."

* * *

"Stop."

Natalie Miller, captain of the women's team, stepped onto the court, and An's opponent let her return bounce away, breathing heavily. Her opponent was a good player, but not as in shape as An was, even though An hadn't played a serious match in some weeks. An, meanwhile, was sweating mildly but breathing normally. It hadn't been an especially difficult match.

No, the match hadn't been especially strenuous. Kirihara Akaya, on the other hand…

She flicked her eyes to the tall, dark-haired teen, who leaned casually against a wall and watched her with a smug, self-satisfied little smile.

 _I bet you think you're a hotshot right now, watching me try out for the tennis team. I bet you think you're a fucking special snowflake. Stalker. All the obnoxious things I'm going to say to you the second I step off these courts… I hope you're excited, Kirihara. I am going to verbally pummel you. Pummel you like pumice. I will be pumice-like in my pummeling._ Actually, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Pumice was pretty flimsy.

An looked back to Natalie, and realized she had spoken while An was thinking about pumice. "That's enough," Natalie said pleasantly. Her curly chestnut hair was tied in a loose ponytail that threatened to fall apart any second, and it bounced against her shoulders as she walked toward An. "Thank you for trying out. We will let you know about the results next week."

An bowed, a habit she'd been teased for since moving abroad, but a habit that she had so far been unable to shake. "Thank you, Natalie." She ignored the faint snicker from Kirihara in the background.

"Not at all," Natalie replied. "We'll be lucky to have you. See you soon."

An beamed, exchanged some niceties, then made a beeline for Kirihara, who had pushed himself off the wall and was now standing with his hands in his pockets, like the most harmless boy in the world. " _You_. Why are you here? Are you following me? I was joking when I called you a stalker last time but maybe I had it right after all. Form a fan club for me or something but do me a favor and don't follow me to the women's locker rooms."

He sized her up for a second, this five foot five girl who barely reached his shoulders, then snorted. "Believe it or not, I come to tennis courts to play tennis."

"Is that why you were standing in a corner peering at me like a creeper?"

"That's why I was standing by the court and judging you like a supreme overlord, yeah."

She sneered at him, but it wasn't as sincere as she had wanted it to be. Somehow, it was just so hard to stay mad at him. "Well, Supreme Overlord Kirihara? How's my tennis?"

"Well, nowhere near as good as mine, of course. But relative to Columbia's team," Kirihara allowed, "you're good." He sneered back, a playful thing on his lips. "That's not saying much, though."

"I bet I could take you."

"In what, a crossword puzzle?"

"In a fight to the  _death_. The only weapons allowed are paper clips. Let's go."

Kirihara whistled. "Getting a bit too cocky, Tachibana. Just yesterday, I fought off a bear with a paper clip, so I'd be careful if I were you."

"Your teddy bear?"

"An Ursaring," Kirihara said, smirking. "Tonight I'm going to challenge the Hoenn Elite Four."

"Ursarings are for pansies," An told him. "Pikachu, though. Pikachu is where it's at."

"That's unoriginal as fuck. And Pikachu is literally a mouse."

"You always have to watch out for the cute ones." An beamed and flipped her hair exaggeratedly. "That's why you should watch yourself around me."

"Damn, Tachibana, I knew you thought I was hot, but I didn't think you found me cute, too. Not sure how I feel about being cute, though. I prefer rugged."

"You're going to look pretty damn rugged once I'm done beating the daylights out of you," An said seriously.

Kirihara folded his arms behind his head and scoffed, "You do that while I enjoy the view up here half a foot above you."

An glared at him to the best of her ability. "So are you going to leave any time soon, or are you really going to follow me to the locker room?"

He gave her a brief once-over and mocked, "I think I'll pass. Won't really be a sight worth seeing."

"You know what would be worth seeing? If I punched you in the—"

Someone cleared their throat, and An realized that she and Kirihara had been bantering in probably more decibels than was acceptable in a tennis center. She cut herself off mid-sentence in embarrassment.

Kirihara flicked her lightly on the forehead and she blinked up at him. "I have a meeting with my trainers in ten minutes. Try not to suck too much while I'm gone." He grinned, a flash of teeth. "But I guess you're okay for a girl. Good thing, too, or I'd have to stop associating with you. Hanging out with pansies is bad for my image."

Forgetting for a second that she had just been shushed, An called after him, "Yeah, you're really living that thug life!"

He gave her a lazy salute without turning around, and An proceeded to head toward the locker rooms, hiding a smile and ignoring the stares she got on the way.

* * *

An wasn't surprised when she made the team. It wasn't that she thought she was some special, spectacular, once in a lifetime tennis player. She  _knew_ special, and even if her tennis wasn't average, she didn't think she could take on her brother in a match. And she was okay with that.

But the varsity tennis team seemed to take tennis far less seriously than she did, and judging by the way the other women on the team had hushed upon seeing her try-out, she suspected that she was one of the better players that had tried out for the team.

It was a little frustrating, to play tennis on a team that didn't take itself seriously. Maria and Natalie seemed to feel passionately about the sport, and so did Hannah, the vice-captain, but the other players seemed to only be on the team to kill time.

But An showed up to practice twice a week as expected of her. It was the off-season, so obligations were at a minimum, and An was one of the few people who attended practice regularly—more than regularly, because she made a trip to the tennis center whenever she had a spare moment, which ended up being around five times a week. And always, always, always, she would run into Kirihara, who turned out to have his conditioning and training sessions around the same time that An had her practices.

For one reason or another, he would take the time to stop by, banter with her a little, and for one reason or another, she would banter back. Strangely enough, it was fun—regardless of any history they'd had five years ago, regardless of who changed and when and how, Kirihara Akaya was— _fun._ He was fun to talk to. And despite his sarcastic remarks, his jabs and taunts, he was never malicious to her. So she began to expect him at practices, waited for a tangle of a dark hair and green, green eyes to meet her each time she set foot on the courts. And he always did.

So today, when she was using the ball machines and Kirihara zoomed by to intercept the ball, An didn't even blink.

"Don't you have a puppy to kick? An old lady to mug?" An inquired, not bothering to look over.

"Been there, done that," he said dismissively. "I have an appointment with some mobsters in an hour, but until then I'm free to channel my thug-ness into whatever I want."

An gestured to his clothes, which were uncharacteristically preppy. They weren't even exercise clothes, and he smelled faintly of shampoo. An guessed he had just finished his training for the day, showered, changed, and was heading back home. "I think that Ralph Lauren polo you're wearing really conveys your thug-ness."

"Ralph Lauren lived the thuggest life out of all of us," Kirihara agreed, and placed a hand over his heart. "Bless his soul."

"So do you usually dress like a prep-school boy from Connecticut, or is this a special occasion?" She reset the ball machine.

Kirihara scowled. "I have a meeting with the people who run my scholarship program. I'm supposed to dress nice for it. A lot of donors and whatnot. The son of one of the donors is a tennis fan or something and he's in New York for the weekend, so they're kicking up a big fuss over it." He kicked at the ground, scuffing his shoes.

An looked at him critically. A white polo, chino pants, and a pair of Sperry boat shoes. "You don't look formal. You just look… preppy." In fact, he looked a bit like he was going to choke in those clothes; they exuded a sort of sublimation, contained his electric energy in something white and bland and  _domestic_. He looked almost like an animal in a cage. It was unsettling, but she grinned up at him and gave him her next best simile. "You look like a suburban dad."

"Have  _you_  ever seen such a fierce, badass suburban dad?"

"Wild, uncontrollable creatures, those suburban dads," An said solemnly. "Raising kids, going to work, dealing with Russian mobsters… Every day is a struggle."

They argued until Kirihara was late for his meeting and An needed to return to campus.

Rinse and repeat, hour after day after week, but not once did either of them bring up the topic of Tachibana Kippei. The thought permeated in the back of her mind, and An pushed it farther back, further down, suppressed and suppressed and suppressed until it became habitual.

* * *

Haruki was sitting cross-legged on the bed and looking pensive when An returned to their room. "Meditating?" the chestnut-haired girl guessed. "Or planning your next crime?"

Haruki looked at her in mock-wonder. "How did you guess?"

"I was planning on doing the same thing," An joked. "Car hijacking and then robbing a bank. And then fleeing to Las Vegas."

"'Cause, y'know, it's just a hop away from New York," Haruki replied, straight-faced.

"Exactly." An plopped down on the bed opposite Haruki's, and mimicked her cross-legged position. "Anything exciting happen while I'm gone?"

Haruki sighed. "I mean, nothing really. Just, my cousin is in the city for some random academic holiday they have in the UK." At An's baffled look, she explained, "He goes to Oxford."

An whistled, impressed. "High-achieving family, aren't you?" She looked at Haruki's sandy hair and lavender eyes, and tried to imagine what a relative of Haruki would look like.

…maybe Haruki in drag?

Haruki shrugged. "He's kind of an outrageous person. We get along fine, just… it's really nice to be away from family sometimes, y'know? Especially from someone who just outdoes you in  _everything_." Haruki smiled ruefully.

"He's not here for long, though, is he?"

"Nah, just a couple of days. It's not that bad, I'm just being whiney. It's not like he eats babies or anything."

"I've always wanted to meet a baby-eater," An said distantly. Haruki arched an eyebrow. "What's your cousin's name? Haibara…?"

"Different family name," Haruki corrected. "He's on my mom's side. Maybe you knew him, actually. He went to school in Tokyo." She pursed her lips. "Actually, Tokyo's a pretty big city, so maybe not."

"Tokyo is a big, magical place," An agreed.

Haruki laughed.

"Well, tell me if you recognize the name at all. Keigo. Atobe Keigo."


	4. September 20 - September 26

**Lighters, 4**

_'cause you're a good girl and you know it_

_you act so different around me_

_Just Hold On, We're Going Home,_ Drake

* * *

 

An was hungry.

It was noon on a Friday and she had only one morning class on Fridays (which was lovely—almost like a three-day weekend). So the logical course of action was, of course, to go get food and perhaps enter a food coma and then watch TV on her laptop in her room and hibernate until Sunday.

She shuffled to the main dining hall on campus, looking up occasionally to admire the change in scenery. The leaves were starting to change color. Students began pulling out their scarves, their jackets—fashionable things, they were, because they lived in New York City, and dressing nicely seemed to be law.

Speaking of the well-dressed.

An wasn’t terribly surprised to see a limousine pull up on campus, to see the driver respectfully exit and open the limousine door, a sleek, black thing. She wasn’t terribly surprised to see one elegant leather shoe exit the car and set foot on the sidewalks of Broadway, to see a handsome young man with shining, curling hair and eyes blue and deep like the Caspian Sea.

Atobe Keigo wore a very nice button-down shirt in a preppy shade of blue, a pair of chino pants and leather shoes, and An thought he looked more like a British socialite than a Japanese college student—but Atobe was always something else, a different species entirely.

Students had begun to stop and whisper. Limousines and celebrities weren’t uncommon things in New York City, and not particularly at Columbia, either. But there was something about Atobe, some inherent charisma that he exuded without speaking a word. It was something in the way he held himself, something in the sharpness of his cheekbones and the sparkle in his eyes. He was icy composure, a winter flurry in an Indian summer and the students on campus stared at him unabashedly, forgot themselves and just stared.

Atobe stood there, indubitably aware of the stares on him with something like smugness, and looked around the campus with watchful eyes, focused and thoughtful, searching for something that would hold his interest. And then his eyes stopped on her.

She sighed, a little tiredly, a little fondly. _Damn it._

Of course, the fact that his eyes had stopped on her didn’t especially surprise her, either. He was an incredibly observant person, and she imagined that he was excellent at picking people out of crowds. Besides, she wasn’t standing especially far from the limousine, either—just a few yards away, about to set foot in the dining hall. She had slowed when she saw the limousine pull up, but unconsciously stopped walking completely when she saw Atobe step out. That was just the effect he had on people. 

He met her eyes and smiled, a small, self-satisfied thing, and resigning herself to her fate, she walked over to him.

“Fancy encountering you here,” he said pleasantly.

Over the years, she had eventually warmed up to him. He was arrogant, and sometimes obnoxious, and more than often a little absurd, but he wasn’t a _bad_ person. And he had mellowed a bit throughout high school as well. They were, if not friends, then at least on good terms. But conversations with Atobe were witty exchanges. He was so impressive as to be imposing, and sometimes their encounters were draining. She enjoyed his company when he chose to offer it, however, and meeting him was never unpleasant. She laughed. “I didn’t want to believe it when Haruki told me, but here you are.”

“You wound me,” he replied easily, and with one hand on the small of her back, guided her further inside the campus. “And how do you find Columbia University, An-chan?” 

“I find it,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I just… find it. New York is…” She gestured with her hands, wild motions meant to illustrate the explosive energy she felt in the city. “You know?”

“Indeed,” he said wryly. He scanned the campus with those eyes, blue and blue and blue, sparkling with mirth but strangely opaque. Atobe’s eyes, An thought, were like one-way glass. But a very peculiar kind of one-way glass, because only what he wanted to show could be seen. His eyes sparkled but if there was more behind it, she couldn’t tell. At last he nodded, a decisive motion. “Your campus is acceptable. Perhaps not as elegant as my own, but it is acceptable.” He glanced at her, his smile reaching his eyes, and An smiled too. Atobe would do as Atobe does.

“So why are you here?” she asked. “Just chillin’ like a villain?”

“Villains tend to lose, An-chan,” he told her. “I prefer to win. And to answer your question, my presence was requested by the Atobe Group earlier this week.” At her curious look, he elaborated, “The Atobe Group sponsors a very prestigious tennis program. As an aficionado of tennis myself, I can only imagine that the managers of program thought it fitting for me to personally acquaint myself with the recipient of this year’s tennis scholarship.” Amusement, real amusement, seeped into his voice. “I don’t suppose I need to inform you of whom the recipient was.”

“ _You’re_ the son of the sponsor of Kirihara’s scholarship?” she exclaimed. “You’re the reason he dressed like a suburban dad to go to a fancy meeting?”

Atobe seemed surprised—but it lasted so briefly that An could hardly tell. “Yes, I suppose I am,” he drawled.

* * *

 

 Atobe looked at her.

She had grown taller, but not by much. Her hair was longer, but still only barely fell past her shoulders. Her eyes, he was pleased to note, were still the clear, determined blue-grey eyes he had found himself so drawn to all those years ago. 

It had surprised him to learn that she was studying in New York for a semester, especially because he himself frequented New York so often. It had surprised him to learn that his cousin, Haruki, was her roommate. He and Haruki were not especially close, but—really, the odds were incredible.

But what surprised him most was her reaction to the name “Kirihara Akaya.”

He had heard, from Haruki, that Tachibana An was acquainted with a tennis player from Kanagawa. As far as Atobe knew (and he knew quite a bit), Kirihara was the only tennis player from Kanagawa who was in any way affiliated with Columbia University. He had allowed himself to briefly consider the implications of such a situation—Kirihara and An, sharing a campus. Kirihara and An, sharing a tennis center. An, he suspected, was not immature enough to hold a grudge after so many years. But she _would_ resent him, Atobe knew.

Her reaction to Kirihara’s name—had been nothing short of fireworks. There was no flicker of resentment in her eyes, only the faintest hint of confusion, confusion and conflict suppressed and suppressed and suppressed, confusion and conflict that he suspected would bubble back up soon enough. But her voice was clear, her expression animated. There was nothing forced in the way she regarded Kirihara Akaya.

He appraised her with interest. _A strange development that has yet to be developed._

“I should’ve guessed it was you,” she was saying. “When Kirihara said that the son of a wealthy sponsor played tennis. Who else could it have been?” She paused. “Your clone, maybe. Your evil twin. I haven’t met him yet, have I? Why haven’t you introduced me? Afraid I’ll like him more than you?” 

He regarded her for a moment, then drawled, “I do own a Fifth Avenue penthouse here, An-chan. You might expect to see me in New York more often. And as for my evil twin, that would be absurd. You could never be fonder of somebody other than myself.” Then, curiously, “How is your brother?”

_That_ made her stop, Atobe noted with some attention.

She seemed at a loss, but then beamed at him, a bright, forced thing that he saw through immediately. “He’s great. Playing in the pro leagues right now, and he’s really doing great, too. He’s training for a pretty big tournament right now.” Her smile faltered a little. “So he’s pretty busy.”

“I see,” he murmured, his voice distant. Deciding it was an appropriate time to change the subject, he continued, “Tezuka is doing quite well in the professional circuits, is he not?” He said it more musingly than questioningly—he, after all, was one of those who knew Tezuka best. That, of course, was both something of a blessing and a curse. Tezuka was a dear friend of his, but Atobe could not deny the flicker of jealousy he felt whenever the topic of professional tennis arose. Those who knew him knew very well how desperately he, too, had hoped to enter the professional circuit, and it was not egoism that assured Atobe of his ability to be successful should he have chosen to enter. But the only son of the Atobe financial group had other obligations, always other obligations… He was content attending Oxford, content as the scion of his family’s financial group, and he had, to some degree, grown out of his desire to play professionally. A small part of that desire, however, had permanently ensconced itself in a dark corner of his heart, and he did not feel as though he had the right to evict it.

“We all saw that one coming,” An was saying, bobbing a little, leaning back on her heels. “I still can’t believe he left just before high school. I wonder what high school in Germany is like.” The conversation continued along those lines, veering safely into small-talk, and he considered her with a little smile.

Kippei and Kirihara. The two men in An’s life.

It was a strange combination, indeed.

* * *

 

(On the train ride to the tennis institute, An held a book in her hands. It was a Romantic novel, written by Emily Brontë, in English old and obtuse made doubly difficult for An to understand as a non-native speaker. But such was her English literature class, and she was determined to muddle through it.

_Wuthering Heights_ was a love story between two people, An thought. It was the story of a dark, dark gypsy-boy, an orphan-boy named Heathcliff who was a little rough around the edges.

And it was the story of a girl named Catherine Earnshaw, who fell in love with Heathcliff with all the ardor and passion of a summer storm. 

Catherine’s family, the Earnshaw family, owned a manor called Wuthering Heights. They adopted the gypsy-boy. Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine’s brother, resented Heathcliff greatly, and as of chapter five, Mr. Earnshaw had died, leaving Hindley to take over the manor.

An put the book away and glanced out the train window. It was raining.)

* * *

Akaya’s eyes lit up when he saw a familiar figure with chestnut brown hair walk through the tennis center doors. He had been practicing with the ball machine, but had opted to take a quick water break—at the perfect moment, it seemed, because at that moment, Tachibana caught his eyes and lit up too, grinned trotted over to him. He couldn’t suppress a feeling of distinct satisfaction, even smugness. Smugness that she was being sunny, cheerful, happy—smugness that he could draw that out in her.

“How has your day been without my awesome?” she asked as she approached, her nose turned up at him haughtily. It was nothing short of hilarious, given that he was about half a foot taller than her.

“Your awesome is just a lesser copy of my awesome.” He thought about it. “Like the moon is just a copy of the sun. Or like cats are lesser copies of saber tooth tigers.”

Tachibana regarded him seriously. “Your face is a lesser version of a saber tooth tiger.”

“Saber tooth tigers are lesser versions of my face,” Akaya crowed, flipping a racquet with one hand. Tachibana was dressed in the Columbia varsity uniform, he observed, which meant she was probably here for practice. He wondered how late he could make her before she had to go.

“You make me want to sic a saber tooth tiger _on_ your face,” An informed him. 

“Are you that intimidated by my attractiveness?” Akaya deadpanned.

“You’re so pretty that it hurts. Like a geisha. A really pretty, weak, fragile geisha.” She sneered at him, a playful thing, and bumped him away from the water fountain with her hip. He let her. Every time she touched him, Akaya was reminded of how much smaller than he she was; that despite her feistiness, and for all her big talk, she was really a five foot five tall _girl_. He wondered if she dressed like girls did—however girls dressed. Skirts and flimsy, frilly things, he supposed. He tried to imagine Tachibana wearing something girly, and drew a blank.

_I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in anything besides exercise clothes_ , he realized.

Well. Not like that mattered. There was something _right_ about Tachibana in exercise clothes. It made him forget that she was a girl sometimes, that she was Tachibana An, five foot five and probably a hundred pounds light. To him, she was just another tennis player on the courts, another student in New York City—

But that wasn’t entirely true, he thought. There was still something about her that was different from the other tennis players he’d met in New York. Something about the curve of her eyes when she smiled, the slant of her lips. Something about the fact that there was sunlight intermingled in her laugh. He swallowed.

He heard himself say, “Wanna rally with me?” Tennis. Tennis was the best way to forget about that bizarre, confusing feeling. Playing tennis was like standing on solid ground and soaring above it, all at the same time. Solid, because Akaya wasn’t quite as sure of anything else in the world as he was of the fact that he loved tennis and he was damn good at it, too. Damn sure of his forehand, backhand, serve, volley, smash, just as sure he was of breathing, sleeping, eating. And tennis felt like soaring, too, because of that rush of adrenaline, the small tickle in his stomach when he had climbed a bit too high, swam a bit too far. There was thrill in tennis just as much as there was surety in tennis, so whatever this weird sunshine-feeling he got from Tachibana was, whatever was wrong—

Tennis would fix it.

But then Tachibana looked at him, and he hated the wariness in her eyes. He hated the hesitation in her voice when she said, “I don’t know…” Hesitation and wariness like stained glass too flimsy to hold, something too delicate for him to not want to destroy. What were her boundaries? How far could he go without breaking her? Who was she to be sunny one moment and cloudy the next? To provoke and tease him and then shy away. 

Who _was_ she?

So he sneered at her, was pleased when she flinched as he said, “What, are you scared? Scared I’ll beat you so bad that you’ll run away crying?” 

The look on her face suggested that she _was_ scared, and Akaya hated that, too. He’d been trying to intimidate her—and was both satisfied and frustrated that he’d succeeded. 

She seemed to battle with herself for a moment. And then she smiled at him, a small, resolute thing that said, _I’ll take a chance on you._ It wasn’t sunny, wasn’t bright, but it was warm, and it made him feel that weird sunshine-feeling again. He pushed it down, down, down as she told him, “You better have brought a box of tissues with you, Kirihara, because you’re going to be sobbing when I’m done with you.”

They both knew that she was joking—that there was no way she would beat him if he played seriously against her. But he liked that she was bantering with him again. He liked it when they verbally sparred. She was just— _fun_. So he drawled, “How did you know I bring tissues with me everywhere?”

She deadpanned, “You always seemed like a delicate flower.”

“Is that your way of telling me you’re jealous of my good looks?” 

She laughed. It sounded like sunlight and tinkling bells. “Do you have plans to not be a jerk sometime this week?”

Akaya pretended to think about it. “I do have plans to go out tonight,” he acknowledged, “but not being a jerk there could be bad for my reputation.” 

“You know what else is going to be bad for your reputation? When you get utterly trashed by me.” Tachibana trotted to the other side of the court, and Akaya fished his pockets for a ball. She was good, he thought—good for a girl. She took tennis more seriously than the other girls on campus did, and that was… something. It _meant_ something.

_But she’s still a girl_ , he thought stubbornly.

Tachibana watched him from across the net. It wasn’t an intimidating stare, wasn’t even a calculating stare. It was just a stare—careful, a little wary, a little trusting, a little of a lot of things that Akaya couldn’t discern.

He could have served a Knuckle Serve. He could have tried to pick her apart the way he did everyone else. But—he didn’t. He served a normal serve, they rallied lightly, and Akaya told himself, _It’s because she’s a girl_. He didn’t hit girls…

—but that wasn’t it, either. He hit shot after shot and she returned shot after shot and he knew that she knew that he wasn’t going all-out (and what was that secret smile on her face). He was going easy, but not just because it wasn’t a real match, not just because she was a girl.

It wasn’t that she was a girl. It wasn’t that she was five-foot-five and had wrists he could probably snap if he wanted to.

It was that she made him feel like sunshine, that she laughed like bells and happy things and there was something terribly warm about her and she was Tachibana An and they were friends, and maybe that meant something.

And somehow, he knew that if he tried to break it, tried to break it and piece it back together—it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t hold anymore. It would be a mosaic of a relationship, too delicate for him to bother with, for him to value.

So they rallied, and he shouted, “Come on Tachibana, is that the best you can do? Are you hitting with a _twig_?” and she shouted back, “I’m hitting with your _mom_ ,” and everyone else in the tennis center stared and glared and Akaya grinned. She was funny, she was fun, and he was happy.

* * *

“AndheinvitedmeandIthinkit’dbefunbutIdon’twanttogoalonesoplease?”

Haruki said it all in one breath, and An crinkled her nose a little as she tried to dissect what Haruki had just said— _There’s a frat party today and one of the boys from the fraternity is really cute and is going to be at the party and he invited me and I think it’d be fun but I don’t want to go alone so please?_ An had only just gotten back from tennis practice—and from her rally with Akaya—when Haruki had all but ambushed her at the door.

Haruki looked at her with big, lavender eyes and An sighed. “I mean, I don’t mind. That’s what the college experience is all about, right? Going to frat parties and getting drunk and waking up on the right side of the wrong bed?” She made a face. “Actually, that doesn’t sound like fun at all. What if the wrong bed is uncomfortable? What if it’s not a bed but a log bench? What if I wake up on a log bench? I’m not okay with that.”

Her roommate laughed. “If I promise to make sure you don’t get kidnapped by any guys who sleep on log benches then will you go with me?”

Truth be told, An wasn’t entirely sure about going. It wasn’t that she planned on never going to a party in college—it _was_ part of the college experience, she reasoned, and it was something she wanted to get a taste of. It had just always been a concept in the back of her mind; she hadn’t realized she would be presented with the opportunity to go to an American college party so soon.

If she really didn’t want to go, or didn’t feel comfortable going, she would have said _no_ right away. Roommate-friendship-pact be damned—she wouldn’t do something she felt uncomfortable doing if her own _professor_ told her to. Peer pressure and all that jazz.

But she did want to go to the party. She just… felt apprehensive.

Haruki clearly didn’t feel apprehensive. Upon realizing that her roommate was a relative of Atobe, she had questioned Haruki intensely, and learned that Haruki had studied abroad in the United States as a high schooler, and had attended her share of American parties already. “It’s bad to go alone to these things,” she was saying. “Not just for safety reasons. It’s just—weird to go alone.”

_Well, why not_ , An reasoned. _It’s not like I can just avoid drunken sleazy men for the rest of my life. May as well learn how to deal with them now. Maybe if I go to these things more often I’ll build up immunity._ Aloud, she said, “Okay, okay, I’ll go. What do you wear to these things?”

Haruki clapped her hands together in relief. “Thank you! You won’t regret it, I promise!” She began sorting through her own clothes. “It’s pretty nice out, and at most parties you’d wear a crop top and short shorts. You went to high school in Japan though, so you might not own any…”

An thought back to the mid-riff baring shirts she had worn as a middle-schooler. “I used to,” she began dubiously, “but I didn’t bring them with me, and they probably don’t fit me anymore, anyway.” She had grown out of that style when she stopped trying to act older than she was. It was a phase that probably all tween-girls went through—the overwhelming want to be that beautiful woman on the street, curvy and red lipstick and earrings and clothing a little too sexy. It took a couple of years for her to realize that she didn’t want to be that sort of woman at all.

Haruki waved her hand. “You can borrow mine. We’re about the same size, anyway.” She held up a white top that was far too short to be considered a shirt, and a pair of shorts that barely qualified as clothing. All in all it quite resembled what she had worn in middle school, sans the hair barrettes.

_What the hell. Throwback Thursdays, right?_ An took the outfit offered to her with flourish, and said, “We are going to be the two most dazzling women your frat boy friend has ever seen.” 

* * *

And that was how she found herself, a few hours later, in her provocative crop-top and shorts, walking with Haruki down the block to the frat house.

Fraternity Row was the name of the street where all the university fraternity houses were located. There weren’t very many of them compared to other American schools, but there were a good few, and the one that Haruki was dragging An to was a nice-looking townhouse, where the brothers of Delta Lambda Kappa resided. They were the sporty frat, Haruki was explaining—the soccer players and lacrosse players and tennis players and basketball players…

An half-listened, half-marveled at the number of people flocking to various frat-houses on a Thursday night. Party culture in the United States really was weird. It wasn’t like she had never seen anyone drink before, or never seen anyone go to a party. There was deviancy in any culture, and An had known deviancy. 

But never had she seen it flaunted so… openly. 

Then again, maybe partying didn’t really count as deviancy in a Western college.

Everywhere she looked, people were smoking. People reeked of alcohol—evidence that some of the kids had pre-gamed(“It means they already drank alcohol before arriving at the party,” Haruki had explained. “A lot of people tend to think these things are more fun when you’re already drunk.”) Girls dressed in clothing far more provocative than what An and Haruki had on. Boys serving as “bouncers” for their respective frat parties had their arms slung around prospective female party-goers, and An wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Haruki glanced at An half-apologetically. “It’s not usually this gross, I promise,” she offered. “It’s just the first week of college. A lot of freshmen who have never partied in high school tend to go all-out this week, and get pretty sloppy.” Haruki, though dressed like—well, a partygoer—still had enough class to look presentable, dignified, and be… well, sober.

“Uh-huh,” An acknowledged. _You’d better be right. If this is what the norm is, then this thing is going to be the first and last American college party I ever go to._ She liked to have fun as much as the next guy—but come on. She looked askance at the girls giggling in the arms of a drunken fraternity brother. _This is just a total lack of self-respect._

She and Haruki approached the Delta brothers’ frat house, where a couple of frat bros were serving as bouncers. One boy leered at them. An kept her eyes hard, stared at him the way she would stare at an opponent across the net. _Sling your arm around me and I will_ break _that arm._

…not that she was totally confident she could do that. These frat bros tended to be pretty ripped.

But eh. Technicalities.

Haruki kept her composure, looked at the frat bro coolly and said, “Jason invited us.” Her smile was friendly but brisk. An couldn’t tell whether she was flirting or challenging him, but whichever it was, it seemed to work, because the frat bro quit his leering, looked at her and whistled in a _hey check out the hot chick_ kind of way.

“Don’t start any fights in there,” he joked. “Our boys bruise easily.”

The joke was friendly enough, but the humor and amicability insincere. Haruki laughed obligatorily and walked in. An followed. 

Loud, thumping music. _Loud_. Not top-forty-hits music. Not even hipster music. Not even, say, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Just a _bass_ , some sort of melody to it but mostly just the steady pulsing of the bass, _bump-de-dump, bump-de-dump._

And it was dark. It was so dim, and the music reverberated in the townhouse that suddenly seemed too small for what must have been nearly a _hundred_ students on just the _first floor_ — 

Girls giggling flirtatiously, boys smiling in that friendly-but-insincere way, brushes too daring to be accidental, and was that a couple making out on the staircase? It wasn’t even 9 PM yet!

And everyone was holding a red Solo cup. An had watched enough American films to know that those were party-cups, filled to the brim with some sort of alcohol. Beer, Vodka, gin, rum, something…

There were so many people. It was so loud. And somewhere in all the pushing (“The _good_ stuff is downstairs,” someone had whispered close to her ear), she had lost Haruki in the crowd.

The smell of alcohol and some sort of smoke—weed? Tobacco? Was that a _hookah_?—filled the townhouse. And An didn’t know what to feel. Fear? Thrill? This was the sort of thing she saw in movies. And now she was _here_ , and surely she’d be okay because there were other freshmen here (mostly freshmen, probably, hoping to get a taste of their first college party), but there were also upperclassmen here, upperclassmen looking for fresh meat—

She pushed her way through, glancing carefully at the staircase that people were cramming themselves into, all fighting to get downstairs to the basement (where the “good stuff” was), but An stayed on the first floor and fought to get to a window that would hopefully be open, because otherwise she would suffocate from the sheer number of people in the frat house 

There were fewer people there. Fewer freshmen, at least. But there were a good number of boys wearing muscle tanks, carefully flaunting their abs and biceps. There were a few girls, too, holding those red Solo cups (who _knew_ what were in those things?). They looked at her as she approached.

But she didn’t look back. Her eyes fixed on one boy in particular, standing there, looking simultaneously like he belonged there and like the most harmless boy in the world. The boy in a T-shirt and shorts, who for all the world looked lazy and apathetic and like he had thrown on the first thing he had seen before heading over to the party. The boy who at least half the girls on the first floor were staring at. The boy who, though bored, crackled with energy.

_His_ green eyes widened as they met hers, in something like shock and anger ( _anger?_ ) and something else. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

 An gaped.

 “Kirihara?”


	5. September 26, continued

**Lighters, 5**

_you cut me wide open like landscape_

_Drunk,_ Ed Sheeran

* * *

  _Now,_ An thought, _someone explain to me why Kirihara is looking at me like I kicked a puppy?_

His eyes were green and bright and doing something funny to her mind, because in that moment all she could do was stare. Why was he here? Why was he wearing a T-shirt and shorts and _why_ was he standing in a corner with a bunch of frat bros, looking at her like—like…

Like he was _nervous_?

In two seconds he crossed over to her, ignoring the whistles and “oh hey who’s _that_ chick” directed his way, grabbed her wrist like there was no tomorrow, and dragged her a few feet away to another area of the floor. It was relatively empty and very dark, and An swallowed, trying to figure out just _what the hell was going on_.

Then he rounded on her, and _damn_ those eyes were electric.

“What,” he hissed, “are you doing here?” The words were quiet but tense, buzzing with angry, tense energy like the low hum of a Taser, and they jolted her from her stupor. Suddenly the deep, penetrating bass in the background was giving her a headache.

She twisted her wrist away from him. “Yeah, good to see you too, buddy.” When he didn’t laugh or joke back, she snapped, “And what do you mean, what am I doing here? What is anyone doing here? It’s a party.”

“It’s a party that you shouldn’t _be at_ ,” he spat. His eyes darted around the room like he was waiting for someone to pop up, and his muscles tensed like he was preparing to run. “About-face and get out, Tachibana.”

She gaped at him. “Excuse me? _Why?_ Who the hell do you think you are?”

He focused his eyes on her again, and the crease between his brows suggested he was uneasy, even worried—but why the hell should he be _worried_ —“I’m not kidding. Leave. You shouldn’t be here.” His words didn’t sound worried at all. They sounded angry. And it made more sense for him to be angry than to be worried (not that it made much sense for him to be angry in the first place—what the hell was his problem?!) but it also rubbed An the wrong way. She was so damn annoyed that he was annoyed with her in the first place.

“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” she spat back. “Now tell me _why_ I’m not allowed to be at a party with the rest of my school’s freshman class.”

Kirihara ran a hand through his hair in frustration, dark curls knotting between his fingers. He exhaled between his teeth, a hissing sound, and finally muttered, “Kenny’s here.”

 _Huh_?

An stared and waited for him to continue, the dull bass of the party music pounding in her ears. But Kirihara stayed silent, and she realized incredulously, “That’s it? The reason I should just _up and leave_ is that _Kenny is here_? That I know someone here? Oh, God forbid an acquaintance of ours is here! Good ol’ Kenny is really out to get me, isn’t he? Never mind the fact that there are kids drinking and smoking all over the place—the reason I should leave is that _Kenny is here_. I’m glad you warned me, Kirihara, I really—”

“Shut up for once, would you?” Kirihara snarled. “I’m not fucking kidding. I want you to leave. This is a problem. I can’t explain it to you right now, just—”

“Just _what_? Leave because you told me to? Because I have to do what you tell me to do now? Is that how that works?”

“Not like you ever fucking listen to what I say anyway—”

“Because I’m _supposed to_? Because you run my life now—?”

“But maybe this _one fucking time it wouldn’t hurt—_ ”

Something snapped.

“Don’t _you_ talk to _me_ about hurting people. Why the hell should I have to run my personal life by _you_?” Her voice rose and rose and rose. “You of all people? Who was it that put my brother in a hospital for _months_ over a tennis match?” The accusation flew out her mouth before she had a chance to check it, but it was too late to turn back. “He couldn’t play for _months_ , Kirihara. So don’t mind me when I don’t rely on you to tell me what’s safe and what’s not!” she fumed. 

For a second, he looked startled. Then conflicted, expression after expression fighting for control. Ultimately, he seemed to settle on anger. “It’s a sport!” he shouted back. “Injuries happen all the time. And it was five fucking years ago!” He raised his voice. “You don’t—” He exhaled shortly, an angry sound, then looked at her with green eyes that were angry, accusing. “You’re bringing up your brother because it’s convenient. And that’s not fucking cool, Tachibana. In fact, it’s a really fucking bitchy thing to do, and you need to get off your high horse.” _Or I’ll push you off for you_ went unspoken.

That hurt, but An continued, the heat of the moment making her livid, burning with fury, hiding the sting of her wounds. “Why do you even care? Why can’t you just leave me alone? Why do you need to pull me aside at a party and—why is this any of your fucking business?” she demanded.

He took an angry, frustrated breath.

“Because I thought we were friends,” he sneered. “My bad.”

He stormed off, returning to the crowd of frat bros and college girls that he had originally been mingling with. A few partygoers nearby confusedly watched him go, and An stood there, somewhere between stunned and stung, hugging her arms to her chest as the rush of rage wore off, leaving a dull, pounding ache in its wake. The bass continued to boom in the background, but the background was fading until it was just white noise in her head, and An sighed and leaned against a wall.

 _“I thought we were friends. My bad."_  

Were they friends?

They talked for hours a day, five days a week at least. They fooled around on the courts together. They bantered. He made her laugh. Did that make them—friends?

Could she be friends with Kirihara Akaya? 

She thought of him and his green, green eyes. She thought of their conversations. Not once had she categorized him as Rikkai, as _other_. Since the moment she had run into him at the courts, they had bantered, argued, but there had never been real malice or ill-intent on his part that she could discern. And she had never really stepped back, really stepped back and looked at him and thought, _Rikkai._ They had graduated from junior high and high school. They were in college. They weren’t even in Japan anymore. Was it even fair to call him Rikkai? 

(Five years, not enough to remove the danger from his eyes—but damn it, damn it all, he had never directed that danger at _her_ —)

What was she doing?

He was right. She couldn’t just call him out on things from years ago whenever it was convenient for her. She couldn’t be happy and bright and beaming with him one moment and resentful and angry the next. And— 

She wanted to be mad at him, and she wanted to hold on to the resentment she had felt upon first learning that he was in New York. She wanted to dislike him. Because Kirihara Akaya, he was—he was red and violent and arrogant and her brother, her brother— 

But she couldn’t. (And not just because she had an iffy memory.) He was all energy and electricity and he set sparks to the air, set sparks to her. He had a way of drawing out her energy too, of getting her to banter with him. He was barely contained energy that lit her up, and she liked that, and—and goddamnit, they were in New York City, they were in college, and seeing him…

He didn’t look like Kirihara Akaya of Rikkai. He didn’t look like the terrifying memory she had retained of him from five years ago.

(And did she even know who Kirihara of Rikkai _was_?)

The Kirihara Akaya she knew, the one in New York with her, the one who taunted her and insulted her and bantered with her, that boy wasn’t malicious. He was a little crass and rude and sarcastic, but he was also silly and childish and—and he was, if not caring of her, then at least _nice_ to her, considerate. Something she hadn’t even thought he was capable of. He seemed to enjoy her company.

An wondered what it would mean to admit that she also enjoyed his. 

Her mood sufficiently soured, An steeled herself and whipped around, determined to find a red Solo cup of her own— _something_ to prove that he hadn’t bothered her, hadn’t thrown her off.

“Hey there,” someone said, and An turned around. It was a boy, short hair and tank-top and shorts and looking at her with the cool, relaxed smile of someone who got around. “Want one of these?” He held up a red cup teasingly. “All the cool kids are doing it.”

 _No, I don’t want one of those. I don’t drink, especially when I don’t know what’s in the cup to begin with. And I think peer pressure is stupid._ “Yeah, I’d love one,” she lied, straight through her teeth. 

He nodded wisely and handed it to her. “You a new kid? Freshman? Transfer student?”

“International student,” she told him. “But yes, I’m a first-year.”

His smile turned into a toothy grin, something vaguely resembling a shark smile. “Nice. I like freshmen.”

 _Oh, do you now?_ An rolled her eyes and made to leave. _Creep_. “Nice to meet you, but I’m gonna—”

“Whoa, slow down, new kid.” He reached for her wrist, which An promptly twisted away. _Everyone’s going for my wrist today._ “Sorry, I didn’t mean that in a weird way. But I do like freshmen. I’m on the lacrosse team, see? And freshmen are a really important part of any sports team. Continuing the legacy and all that. Do you do any sports? Lacrosse?”

 _Oh, is_ that _why you like freshmen? How convincing._ “I don’t do lacrosse, but I do play tennis,” An said, still half-turned away from him, determined to leave. Not the party—that would be letting Kirihara win—but at least run to a different corner of the townhouse, maybe a different floor…

Lacrosse Boy’s eyes lit up. “Oh, then maybe you’d like Kenny. He’s the vice-captain of the men’s tennis team here. Want me to introduce you?”

What were the odds? But An never had been one to enjoy following directions, especially not directions from curly-haired, green-eyed, electric boys—even if maybe he hadn’t been _completely_ in the wrong, but damned if she was going to admit that— 

She beamed, smiled her best sunshine-smile. “We’ve already met, but if he’s here, I’d love to see him.”

They walked around the house a little, looped around a few people, stopped to greet a few people that the boy knew, red Solo cups filled with unidentifiable alcohols in hand. “Hey, Liam,” Lacrosse Boy called casually. “Mira, how’s it going? Yo, Akaya…”

An stiffened and glanced over.

They had returned to the original corner of the first floor, just a few feet from the window where An had sought refuge only a while earlier. And there Kirihara was, leaning against a wall, a gaggle of girls to his left and a few frat bros to his right, laughing over something and gesticulating vividly. When Lacrosse Boy called out to him, Kirihara looked over, passing over Lacrosse Boy to settle on An, who looked past him determinedly. She thought she heard him scoff, but amidst the loud, pounding bass music, she couldn’t be sure. “Yo,” he returned, and when Lacrosse Boy started moving again and An looked back, Kirihara had already turned away.

* * *

“Fancy seeing you here,” Kenny said pleasantly, and An smiled. They stood close to the staircase, several yards away from Kirihara and company, but very close to the (thankfully dwindling) mob of people attempting to make their way downstairs. 

“Yeah, who would’ve thought,” An laughed. “Are you a brother of this fraternity?”

“I’m a proud Delta,” he confirmed. “A lot of athletes are in this frat, so it made sense to join. It makes for great living arrangements, too. Brothers of the fraternity can stay in the frat townhouse instead of doing regular student dorming. It’s a lot more comfortable, and really liberating.”

“Liberating, how?” An wondered.

He laughed. “We get away with a lot. Let’s just leave it at that.”

An hummed a little, not sure what to say to that. “Well, nice party.” She gestured a little. “Very… party-ish.”

“That’s the secret behind any successful party,” Kenny informed her. “Keep the parties party-ish.”

An nodded wisely. “Tricks of the trade, those are. Might go into party-planning myself.”

His eyes seemed darker than usual, but it might have been a trick of the light—or lack thereof. “I’m sure you’d be successful at whatever you intend to do,” he told her.

“You’re so positive.”

“No, you’re the positive one,” he said, laughing again. “You’re so… bright, all the time. It doesn’t seem like anything can ever get you down.” An wondered if there was an edge to those words. It vanished before she could ascertain it. “Anyhow, these parties are a weekly thing. The Deltas try to keep things lively,” he offered by way of explanation. “You should come back sometime. We’d like to see you next week. Or any week. Or every week.” He grinned. “You’re welcome here anytime, An. We like fun people." 

She didn’t really want to come back. She didn’t like how crowded it was. She didn’t like the overwhelming smell of alcohol and sweat and hormonal teenagers. And so far, frat life had not left anything vaguely resembling a good impression on her. But recalling the annoyed look Kirihara had shot her when he spotted her with Lacrosse Boy…

An grinned back. “I just might.”

Kenny lifted his cup of who-knows-what. “Let’s drink to that.”

 An tossed the drink back, and it tasted acidic and bitter and all forms of _terrible_ on her tongue.

* * *

She steered clear of frat boys for the rest of the night.

People were friendly, perhaps because they weren’t entirely sober. An smiled and dodged attempt after attempt to acquire her phone number. It wasn’t long before the party began to wear thin on her patience, and An grabbed Haruki as she made to leave.  

On her way out the door, she spotted Kirihara, leaning against a door, surrounded by college students. They all looked happy, like they were having fun…

Kirihara, though, looked uniquely sulky, his expression sour and his eyes downcast, staring determinedly into his red Solo cup like it had personally wronged him.

Seeing him upset didn’t make her as vindictively satisfied as she thought it would. Instead, she found herself forced to look away.

An swallowed her guilt and left the frat house.

* * *

 

“Say,” Haruki murmured absently, “who is Kirihara Akaya, anyway?”

 _A stupid punk_ was on the tip of her tongue, but An forced it back, feeling unusually taciturn and sour. Her quarrel with Kirihara was still floating around in her mind, doing cartwheels around her conscience and making her feel guiltier and guiltier with each turn. She and Haruki had left the party and made their way back to their dorm some hours ago, and were now sitting on An’s bed watching American television dramas on her computer. Haruki had sobered at the realization that An was in a poor mood, and the walk back to their room was a fairly quiet one. But now she was talking again—about the one topic that An had hoped to avoid.

“I hear he’s kind of a big deal,” Haruki continued. “Some sort of tennis prodigy? Is he really that good? Columbia wanted to get him to transfer here officially, but I think he turned it down to keep training or something…”

“He’s okay, I guess,” An muttered halfheartedly. She stared at the computer screen, staring past the Japanese subtitles and not really paying attention to the English dialogue. “Not that special.”

But that was a lie.

There was something strangely appealing about Kirihara’s tennis. It was wild and violent and _crazy_ —scary and awful but a little thrilling, a little tempting. He played tennis like pure, uncontrollable energy, shaken not stirred and left to explode. It was green and red and it clashed and clashed but left sparks in its wake, showers of electricity that she couldn’t help but want to touch. They shocked her and stung her and shot straight to her heart.

“He must be better than just _okay_ ,” Haruki was saying, “if Columbia is helping to pay for his lodging and whatever when he’s not even officially on their team.”

Haruki spoke of him almost reverently. An tried to imagine the Kirihara she knew as someone worthy of revering—the Kirihara who bantered with her and swaggered and looked at her with electric eyes. The Kirihara who leaned against doors like the most harmless boy in the world, the Kirihara waltzing on the cusp of adulthood, the Kirihara who— “So he’s better than okay,” An said stubbornly. “So?”

Haruki grinned at her. “So what’s he to _you_? Are you guys friends? Did you date? Are you dating? Partners in crime? Bonnie and Clyde?”

“Oh, yes,” An replied dryly. “Every full moon we team up and find puppies to kick. Then we make out passionately.”

Haruki stroked her cheek sagely. “That’s what I suspected.” She regarded An curiously. “You two seem close, though. Childhood friends, maybe?”

An thought. “If you count thirteen as childhood, then I guess so, yeah. But that was only—what, five years ago?” _And that really depends on your definition of the word friendship._ Her thoughts wandered uncomfortably back to her argument with Kirihara. “But we weren’t really close most of those five years.” Actually, thinking about it, she realized she hadn’t become very close with Kirihara until several weeks ago, when she had first run into him in America. “We met at a tennis tournament.” Suddenly she felt like one half of an old married couple, speaking fondly of her first date.

“Of _course_ you met at a tennis tournament.” Haruki sounded fondly exasperated. “What, his serve was beautiful and you were mesmerized and fell in love instantly?”

“He injured my brother’s knee and then I pushed him down the stairs,” she said automatically, without any real conviction. The words felt stale on her tongue.

Haruki whistled. “That’s either a bad joke or a bad start to a fabulous relationship.”

An shrugged, unwilling to pursue the thought further. “Tell me about Atobe,” she offered. “Was he as pretentious when he was a kid?” She tried to imagine a five year old Atobe referring to himself as “ore-sama,” and pretended Kirihara wasn’t on her mind at all.

Her roommate paused for a moment. “I guess so,” she said finally. “I don’t know. It never really felt like he was especially pretentious, because everyone in those circles is kind of pretentious, y’know? It comes with being powerful and knowing it. And Keigo definitely knew it.” She smiled a little, as if remembering a fond memory. “The first really _clear_ memory of him I have is that one dinner we went to together when we were… eight? We were visiting him in England, and he looked so grouchy. Wouldn’t talk to me for almost the entire dinner besides obligatory pleasantries. Then his mother told me it was because he had lost a tennis match earlier that day to some local kids, and he threw the biggest fit—started shouting that he wouldn’t lose the next one, that it was just a fluke… he practically flipped a table." 

An started to laugh. There was something about the mental image of an eight-year old Atobe Keigo flipping a table that was incredibly amusing.

“It turns out he was pretty bad at tennis back then,” Haruki continued. “Or, not _bad_ , but those kids were better. They didn’t even want to play against him, but he kept going back and challenging them to matches, and kept losing and losing until he started winning, and then it was like he couldn’t stop winning—” She said it all in one breath, like she was a little awed, and then caught herself and stopped. 

“Atobe’s tennis is really something else,” An agreed. “Have you seen him play?”

Haruki shrugged. “I don’t know anything about tennis. I think I’ve seen a couple of matches, but I couldn’t appreciate—oh, I don’t know, his form or his serves or anything like that. I just know he won. And he looked really into it. I guess that’s what finding what you’re meant to do looks like. He seemed really _happy_.”

“I know what you mean,” An agreed, but it didn’t seem like Haruki was listening. 

“I think he really wishes he could play professionally. I bet he’d be good at it,” she was saying. _You don’t know the half of it,_ An thought, but her roommate continued, “I’m sure he’ll be a good CEO too, but tennis has just been his passion for such a long time. Everyone in our family thought he’d kick up a huge fuss about not being able to play professionally, but Keigo just kind of calmly accepted it and went off to Oxford. He’s grown up a lot.”

…

_“Say… If I beat you in a tennis match, then you have to go on a date with me.”_

…

That boy… the boy who had once tried to break Tezuka’s shoulder in a tennis match. Who tried to force An to go on a date with him. That boy evenly moving on to bigger things, shoulders squared and eyes hard. That boy—man?—being forced to give up a childhood dream, and being okay with it. It was true: Sometime, while An wasn’t looking, he had grown up. “I think you’re right.”

Then she thought of the boy who had tried to injure her brother’s knee. Whose tennis was anger and anger and anger. That boy, who greeted her with grins and jokes and pure, unadulterated energy. The boy with absinthe green eyes. She wondered if that boy had grown up too.


	6. September 27

**Lighters, 6**

_the furthest thing from perfect, like everyone I know_

_Furthest Thing,_ Drake

* * *

 

(A few months after Hindley's return, Heathcliff—the dark, handsome gypsy boy—and Catherine went exploring. Catherine, upon getting injured, was sent away to live with the Linton family to recuperate, while Heathcliff was sent home. The Linton family was well-bred, with their fine appearances and genteel manners. Catherine, in their care, was steadily becoming more ladylike and well-mannered, less of the childish, energetic girl she had been with Heathcliff.

This fact was, of course, unbeknownst to Heathcliff, who meanwhile eagerly awaited her return to the Earnshaw manor.)

* * *

Lincoln Center was  _the_  arts center of New York City, and possibly of North America. At least, that was what it felt like to Haruki, as a (temporary) New Yorker. Anything relevant to the performing arts occurred in the Lincoln Center area. The famed music college, Juilliard, for example, was located only a street away from Lincoln Center. LaGuardia High School, a prestigious arts school known for producing famous performers, was located in the vicinity as well. The Metropolitan Opera House, the New York City Ballet, the School of American Ballet—all of these organizations had headquarters located in the Lincoln Center area.

Haruki was something of an arts buff, and had suggested that she and An explore the neighborhood on one of the rare days they both had free time.

With the full knowledge, of course, that her cousin Keigo would be visiting a family friend that day, who was staying in the esteemed Charles Hotel, located conveniently a block away from Lincoln Center itself.

So when An and Haruki, strolling down Broadway along Lincoln Center, found themselves staring into the dark eyes of one Atobe Keigo, who was just stepping out of the hotel lobby, Haruki was not terribly surprised.

From what she had gathered, An and Keigo had a certain dynamic, a  _je ne sais quoi_  that Haruki found interesting. Maybe it was that An didn't seem to be intimidated or impressed by Keigo's accomplishments and looks the way so many others did; maybe it was that Keigo took her at face value, regarded her with a sort of—not quite respect, but  _acknowledgement—_ that he didn't feel most people deserved. What was it about An, her sweet, silly roommate An-chan?

Keigo walked over to them languidly, looking for all the world like the meeting was planned and that he had meant to do so all along.  _Clack, clack_  went his leather shoes against the hard pavement, audible even amidst all the noise of traffic. His hands were in the pockets of his chino pants, a little standoffish but decidedly  _Keigo_  in his mannerisms—he tossed his head back a little as he regarded them. "What a pleasant surprise," he said grandly. "Haruki, An-chan. Lincoln Center is quite a distance from your university, as I recall."

Haruki smiled and rocked a bit on her heels. "You could say we're exploring."

"It is quite befitting of the both of you to have a penchant for meandering," Keigo agreed, sounding amused, "though that does not disincline me to find such a penchant rather strange." His gaze lingered on An, intent. His hair fell into his eyes just enough such that Haruki had to peer to discern their color— _dark_ , she decided,  _like violet indigo._ But today they glittered with something lavender.

Haruki glanced at her roommate, who was grinning. The brunette retorted, "The strange one here is you, Atobe-san. Who wears  _red pants_  in public?" She gestured to Keigo's attire. He wore a navy blue sweater, loafers, and red chino pants—though, in Keigo's defense, they were really a shade of maroon. Haruki stifled a smile. She supposed it  _was_  unusual attire for someone like An, who had grown up in Japan… but in her and Keigo's circles, preppy Western attire was perfectly average, even expected. "You kind of look like Santa," An continued. "Festive." She gestured a little, as if trying to paint a picture of Christmas with her hands in the air.

The corners of Keigo's lips quirked upwards in a smirk. It was a familiar movement, and Haruki sorted through the memories of all her past interactions with Keigo to decipher its meaning. It took her a moment to hit on it, but when she did…

_He's laughing._

"While I have been informed by others that the honor of being in my presence is—and I quote—'like Christmas come early,' I must confess that Santa Clauswas not quite the image I was aiming for." He shook his head, a little fondly. "Really, An-chan, making such a comparison is quite like you." That last sentence caught Haruki's attention too. How well did they know each other? Then again, Keigo had always had a knack for reading people.

"You are a few months too early for Christmas," An agreed, "but if you  _can_  make Christmas come early, or are buds with the Powers That Be, I wouldn't mind an early holiday break. The college workload is killing me."

"I will inform the Powers That Be of your recommendation," Keigo assured her dryly, "as I would find your early death rather inconvenient."

"Aw, just admit that you'd miss me."

Haruki watched, a little fascinated. Her cousin had always had a sort of fondness for bantering, but there it was—the subtle way in which he regarded her. It wasn't just acknowledgment, was it? It couldn't be…

"It doesn't seem that you would even bequeath me the opportunity to miss you, considering how frequently we encounter one another."

"Like anyone would want an opportunity to miss me," An scoffed. "My company is the best company."

"I fear you'll have to compete with me for that title." His words were joking, but he was looking at An with those observant eyes, those dark violet-indigo-lavender eyes that seemed to grow sharper and sharper and darker and darker each time Haruki saw them.  _Like opaque glass,_  she thought, not for the first time.

An beamed. "Sure, I'll fight you for it. But I'm warning you, I've got a pretty sharp roundhouse kick in my arsenal. I feel like you're the type to bruise easily, so if I were you, I'd watch out…"

"How did you guess?" he asked in mock wonder. Haruki smiled a little, recalling that she had spoken the exact same words in the exact same tone to the exact same person just a week ago.  _I guess we really are family._ An glanced at Haruki, clearly thinking the same thing, before turning back to Keigo.

"I had a feeling," she informed him. "I've been told I have a knack for these things."

"I'm sure," Keigo drawled.

They jested a bit more before the conversation veered back towards Haruki, but by then, her curiosity had been mostly satisfied. It became quickly apparent that Keigo was acting the way he did when he spotted a particularly difficult puzzle, or was presented with a particularly curious tidbit of information. It was something a little beyond curiosity and acknowledgment.

_Ah._

It was interest, she realized.

* * *

"And how long are you going to be in the city? Maybe stay for Halloween?" Haruki was asking.

Atobe replied, "You seem to forget that I  _do_  have classes to attend to, and Halloween is more than a month away…"

An watched the family interaction, humming a little. Different as they were in personality—Haruki was much less reserved, more personable, whereas Atobe seemed sometimes like an icy wind of regality—it was very apparent that they  _were_  family, albeit distant. Their hair color was rather different, but their eyes—Haruki's lavender eyes were only a shade away from Atobe's own dark violet-blue. They were both fine-boned, with glassy eyes framed in dark lashes, but where Haruki's eyes were clear and expressive in their glassiness, Atobe's were more concealed, coated with something smoky or grey.

Atobe looked like royalty wherever he went—it was something about the way he held himself. Haruki, meanwhile, seemed to want to paint herself into the wall. Her sandy brown hair was always let loose, sometimes in a careless ponytail. She never dressed flashily.

But standing together, An thought that each cousin seemed to bring out the most striking aspects of the other. Atobe Keigo and Haibara Haruki looked indeed like devastatingly beautiful members of a devastatingly beautiful family, as they reminisced together about childhood brunches and adventures.

It made An miss her own family.

Her own grandmother and great-grandmother, whom she had visited weekly when she lived in Japan.

Her parents, who called her as often as they could.

Her own brother for whom she'd gotten into an argument with Kirihara, but who knew nothing about her friendship with Kirihara. She cringed a little at the thought of what her brother would say if he knew how close she had grown with him. (Atobe glanced her way, catching her expression, and said nothing. An took no notice.)

Wasn't this… betrayal, in a way?

But would her brother still be holding a grudge five years long…?

The real question was—did she have the courage to ask?

(And the real answer was—at this point, probably not.)

"…around 2 PM tomorrow," Atobe murmured, and Haruki nodded back.

"Sucks you have to go," she said, but An thought it sounded a bit halfhearted.

…

" _It's really nice to be away from family sometimes, y'know? Especially from someone who just outdoes you in_ everything."

…

 _Oh,_ An realized.  _Oh, I see._

Maybe, in a small, dark part of her heart, she felt the same way about her brother. And in some ways, that was why she had chosen to leave—to go to a new country for a semester, where no one would know her as  _Tachibana's little sister_. In a country on the other side of the globe, with no one she recognized.

(And then she had run into Kirihara—)

But looking at Haruki and Atobe—however reluctant their relationship might have been, they were still  _family_ , and something about it produced a twang of discomfort and guilt in An herself, who had yet to contact her brother since moving abroad.

And that was how she found herself, six hours later, sitting in her dorm room, alone, staring at her cell phone pensively.

_To call or not to call, that is the question._

It was six PM in New York, sometime early in the morning in Australia—An didn't bother trying to calculate the exact hour, because math—but her brother had always been an early riser, and as far as she knew, there wasn't anything important in his schedule for this week anyway.

But  _how_  exactly would she explain why she hadn't called for a month?

_Ninjas attacked me. I was eaten by a sea turtle. A sea turtle ate my phone. My phone ate a sea turtle._

She dialed her brother's number without really thinking about it, repeating in her head over and over,  _My phone ate a sea turtle, my phone ate a sea turtle, my phone ate a sea turtle, my phone…_

"Hello?"

The familiar sound of Kippei's voice over the phone startled her. An shifted. "Hey… oniichan. It's An. How are you?"

"Oh, is this An? I'm doing well. The weather here is very nice. How is New York treating you?"

"Pretty well," she said, crossing her legs on her bed pretzel-style. "The weather here hasn't been too bad either. New York's pretty cool. It's really loud and city-ish—but I guess Tokyo was kind of the same way…"

"Mm, I guess so," he replied. "Well, I'm glad to know you like it there. Have you made any new friends?"

 _Kirihara._ The thought of saying even his  _name_  to her brother sent her reeling.

"Yeah, m-my roommate's really nice," An stammered, "and—uh, and she's related to Atobe! How weird is that, huh? I—uh—I joined the tennis team here, and everyone's friendly and… uh…"  _And Kirihara is one of my best friends but I got into a huge fight with him over_ you _and oniichan what do I_ do?

Her brother laughed a little. "Trust Atobe to have a relative abroad. And have you visited all the major sightseeing spots? Times Square and the Empire State Building? Statue of Liberty?"

"Not yet," An admitted, relaxing a little as the conversation veered into less dangerous territory. "I will though. They're just always so packed with tourists, and I have so much work." Then, guiltily, "But I guess you're even busier, huh? How's training going?" An swallowed. "I'm sorry for not…"  _For not telling you about Kirihara. For being friends with Kirihara. For making small talk with you instead of having a real conversation with you even though it's the first conversation we're having in a_ month. "…for not calling sooner." She laughed uneasily. "It's been busy, and I have so much work. But—but I guess I just said that, huh?" She laughed again.

The line was silent for a moment, and An began to suspect that he had hung up, when he said, "Are you okay, An?"

She almost jumped.

He continued, "You sound a little… I dunno, maybe you're tired, you did say you have a lot of work, but… Are you okay?" His voice softened a little. "I'm your big brother, An. You can tell me anything."

 _Freaky sibling telepathy,_ An thought, but couldn't deny the simultaneous feelings of warmth and guilt that his words wrought in her. "No, everything's great!" she said, with false alacrity. "You're right I'm just—tired. I… have a lot of work."

There was another long pause, and then Kippei said, "Okay. Well, you take care of yourself." He sounded a little distant, a little—well, An didn't know. A little cold, perhaps, or a little hurt. A little resigned.

"Yeah, you too," An murmured, unhappily.

"It's late there, isn't it? You should get some dinner and then sleep early. Good night, An."

"Good night."

She felt empty as she hung up the phone. Her first conversation with her brother in a  _month,_ and all she could do was make small talk, not even tell him that something was bothering her, let alone  _what_  was bothering her. And if his tone when he hung up had been any indication, he  _knew_  that something was wrong, and that An didn't want to tell him.

Because how could she?

No matter how much she genuinely enjoyed being friends with Kirihara, bantering and just basking in his energy and warmth (and dear  _god_  she had never thought that 'warmth' would be a word she'd associate with Kirihara)—no matter how much she had come to accept that they were  _friends_ —how could she tell her brother that and expect him to understand?

And simultaneously, this didn't seem fair to Kirihara, either. How was this any different from being ashamed of him?

And An  _wasn't_  ashamed of him, not really. In fact, she was quite proud of him…

Proud of his chilly energy, his intensity, his tennis, his electric eyes.

Proud that they were  _friends_.

(And she'd gone and fucked that one up, hadn't she—)

An buried her head in a pillow.

* * *

She was frustrated, so frustrated.

So she went to play tennis.

(Truly, she was a Tachibana.)

Racquet in hand, she veered determinedly around a corner and marched toward the bright blue courts at 7PM, where most people were leaving to get dinner or sleep or both of the above. The fitness center was almost empty, except for a couple of regulars on the men's team, and, of course, of  _course, damn her luck_ —

There was Kirihara, practicing with a ball machine, hitting the ball back with deadly accuracy to a corner of the service box, like the tennis ball had personally wronged him.

When he paused to wipe the sweat off his forehead, he looked up, and met An's eyes.

She stared.

His face was flushed, and the brightness of his eyes, framed against dark lashes, popped against the pale pink of his cheeks. He was breathing heavily, like he'd been at it for a while. His knuckles were white.

Their argument from the night prior hung between them like a wall, smothering them.

Surprise was the first sentiment to pass across Kirihara's face. His mouth hung a bit open ( _like a fish,_ An thought.  _Like… an anchovy?_ ), like he wasn't sure if he was expected to greet her. But Kirihara was never the type to do as he was expected. The surprise was then replaced by bewilderment, and  _that_  was then replaced by a sort of petulance that made An want to laugh.

He looked a little like he wanted to talk to her, like he wanted to take a step forward and say something. But instead he stood there stubbornly, refusing to be the first to move, the first to apologize, and instead just stared back at her as she stared at him.  _Dare you dare me_ , his eyes said.  _I dare you to dare me._

She almost wavered under the intensity of his green eyes. She felt like an ant under a magnifying glass, waiting to be set aflame. If the burning of her cheeks was any indication, she already had been.

Then she smiled a little.

 _I will take a chance on you,_ a voice in her head said,  _because I think you'll be worth it. I think I want to be friends with you._

An squared her shoulders and strode over confidently, stood a few feet away from him. He watched her, tensing, and again An marveled at the  _electricity_ that almost certainly ran in his veins instead of blood. He was still, but he always seemed to be thrumming with energy, ready to leap away at the slightest indication.

She twirled her racquet, a little nervously. "I freaked out at the party. Sorry."  _We are friends_  went unspoken.

He looked surprised by her apology, a little taken aback, even.  _Really_? he seemed to be asking. But then he shrugged and met her eyes. "Want a hitting partner?"

An beamed, genuine happiness radiating in her smile. "Only if you're ready to be pulverized," she told him, falling easily back into their friendly banter.

Kirihara snorted, but the tension had left his shoulders. He lightly tapped her on the head with his racquet. "I said  _hitting partner,_ not  _mortal enemy_."

"What a wuss."

"You'll regret that," he threatened. "Take that back."

She giggled. "And you hit like a girl."

"It is  _on,_ " he snarled, mock-angrily. "It is  _on_  like these courts are blue and tennis balls are fuzzy. It is  _on."_

An hop-skipped to the other end of the first available court she saw and got into position. "Come at me," she taunted.

"You're asking for it," he jeered. "Be prepared to be  _crushed_. Like crushed Oreo cookies." He served.

"Which are  _amazing,_ " An finished, running for the ball, "so I guess I should be thanking you for the compliment, huh, Kirihara?" She hit it back, bouncing a little on her toes, a certain lightness in her step.

"They're also edible. Are you edible?"

"Your face is edible."

"Your mom is edible."

 _Pok pok pok_  went the ball, flying past the net with each traded insult.

"Why," An lamented, "do we always seem to go back to the 'your mom' card?"

Kirihara shook his head sorrowfully. "Youth these days," he sighed. "No creativity."

"Your  _face_  has no creativity," An deadpanned, and positively beamed when Kirihara threw his head back and cackled.

"So I heard about this cool place downtown," Kirihara said abruptly, when he had calmed back down. "Wanna go tonight?"

Trust Kirihara to come up with plans the minute before their execution.

An crossed her arms and shook her head dubiously. "I dunno, man. Tennis-playing thug shows up and tells you he's got a  _cool place_  to take you. Couldn't have seemed sketchier if he'd shown up with a windowless van and offered me candy." She shrugged and sighed exaggeratedly. "This kid. What a moron."

"Probably still smarter than the crazy chick who talks  _to_  people in  _third person_ ," Kirihara drawled.

"What are you gonna do? Sell me on the black market? Underground slave trade?"

He scoffed. "Please, if I wanted to sell someone on the black market, I wouldn't sell  _you_. Wouldn't get nearly enough bang for my buck. Not much of a looker, and probably can't do much manual labor either." He grinned. "Do you even lift?"

An snorted. "Does your face lift?"

"Oh, yeah," he deadpanned. "Twice daily."

"You might want to work on its regimen," An advised. "It's looking a bit flabby."

"If by flabby you mean sexy as fuck, then yeah, I guess so." And then, in an infomercial-telemarketer voice, he added, "And if you come to Kirihara's Cool Place tonight,  _your_  face can look the same!" He pointed his fingers at her in a  _here's looking at you_  way.

She rolled her eyes. "Well, if you're so desperate for my company," she sang, "I suppose it couldn't hurt."

"I'm just worried you'll cry yourself to sleep without me around, so I'm offering to spend a bit more time with you. Pure charity work."

"Kirihara the philanthropist. Who would've guessed?"

"Probably your mom," he said, then snickered.

"I think it really says something that two college kids can't come up with better insults than your-mom jokes."

"Yeah. It says that we're hella cool."

"I can't believe you just used hella in a sentence."

"You just did too!" he argued.

"That doesn't count!" she argued back. "I only did it to demonstrate what an unrestrained dork you are."

He smashed the ball in a sudden burst of energy. It flew past her so quickly that it was nothing but a neon blur. She gaped at it, then looked back at him. He grinned wickedly. "Sorry, you said something?"

She pointed at him angrily. "You cheated!"

"By being better than you?" he mocked. Before she had a chance to retort, he added, "Go shower and change and dress to match my awesome. I need to be able to be seen with you. You wouldn't want me to ditch you and leave you stranded on the Lower East Side without a guide because you were looking too loserish, would you?"

She sneered at him. "Must be hard for you, then—do you get ditched often, with a face like that?"

"I'm usually the ditcher, not the ditchee." He pretended to flip his hair. "People just can't keep up with this sexy face."

"So… you're gay?" An guessed, and snickered when he stumbled.

"I don't think you'd want me to be gay," he said smugly. "Do you really want me as competition? I'd get  _all_  the boys."

An began to laugh. "You are  _crazy._ "

"I'll text you the address," he told her. "Meet me there at eight."

They rallied for another half hour, jeered and argued with each other as they left the courts, like nothing had changed. But there was a new undeniable warmth somewhere inside An, and judging by the way Kirihara had lit up as they walked to the train together, she suspected that he was feeling a bit lighter too.

* * *

An climbed the stairs exiting the subway station. Her hair was still a bit wet from the shower, and she suspected that she smelled like shampoo. She wore a light summer dress and heels ( _to match his awesome_ , she reminded herself wryly), hoping that she wasn't overdressed—what the hell did  _a cool place_  mean, anyway?

It was 8:10 PM, but the Lower East Side of Manhattan was still bustling with people, and An whistled a little as she was bustled and shoved around. Kirihara had texted her the address of some notoriously trendy neighborhood, especially among college kids and graduates. Her heels click-clacked against the tiled stairs, and when she finally made it out of the subway station she was greeted by the sight of neon lights and bustling twenty-year-olds, the smell of smoke—of the legal and illegal variety—the sound of idle and excited chatter, cars honking and whirring past. It reminded her almost of Times Square, but without the tourists. The Lower East Side, as An recalled, tended to be more popular amongst New York natives.

She navigated as best as she could, the warm summer air tousling and drying her hair as she went. Turn right, then go straight for two blocks, then left, then…

And then she was standing outside of a club.

Kirihara had dragged her to a  _club_.

Teenagers and adults alike lined up outside the club, dressed in small, tight dresses and carelessly rolled up oxford shirts, each eagerly awaiting inspection by the scruffy looking bouncer waiting outside. An noticed that he didn't seem to be carding anyone—which, as she understood, was probably illegal, but also relatively normal on the Lower East Side of New York City.  _Oh, America,_  she thought, a little amazed—weren't bouncers supposed to check ID _?_ Wasn't that his job?

And then, observing all the women being turned away at the door for wearing flats— _Good thing I wore heels._

She twirled a little, looking for Kirihara, and it took a second for her to find him.

He blended right in.

The breeze brushed his wild, curly hair and ruffled his grey-striped button down shirt, which hung unbuttoned on his shoulders to reveal the white tank top he was wearing underneath. It clung to his body, and drew attention to his build. He paired it with dark jeans and a pair of Sperry's, and seemed completely oblivious to the fact that his monotonously colored attire only drew more attention to the brilliant greenness of his eyes. He likewise seemed oblivious to the stares of all the women in the vicinity ("Who's  _that?"_ "A model, maybe?" "He's super cute—"). Reluctant as she was to admit it—she swallowed—among all the men waiting for entrance to the club, Kirihara looked undeniably…  _better_.

He was leaning against a phone booth outside the club, facing the line of hopeful clubbers and staring blankly at the wall above their heads, when An bounced up to him and poked his cheek.

"You're late," he scowled, without even turning around.

An scowled back. "By  _ten minutes_. I think he'll—" An nodded towards the bouncer, "—survive."

"Ten minutes is a lot of minutes," he argued, even as he moved languidly toward the clubbers to get in line.

"Well, sorry that I don't control the subway schedules and arrival times in New York City," An retorted, following. Damn those shoes hurt.

"Some President of Catalonia you are," he muttered.

"Not even the President of Catalonia can make the subway train run on time!" An protested angrily.

"Not that you would know," he taunted, "considering you're not."

"Neither are you."

He waved it off. "That's different. I don't  _want_  to be the President of Catalonia."

"Oh, yeah? What do you want to be?"

"A tennis player," he told her, and in a mock-confused voice, continued, "Didn't you know? Why, Tachibana, I thought we had something. Don't you care?"

"I care about punching your face in."

Kirihara pretended to sigh happily. "I knew I was loved." The people behind him in line chuckled a little at their conversation, and An smiled.

 _Youth_ , she decided,  _is about passion._ Passion and fire and electricity and mistakes—safety was suddenly so overrated, so boring. Standing next to Kirihara, she suddenly wanted those mistakes, wanted recklessness—wanted to feel it, just once, to experience it. She had never believed in avoiding risk, but for the first time, she actively desired it. College was her last change to be young, to get away with something insane, completely careless and irrational—before she had to settle back down to routine, to adulthood.

They had moved steadily up the line as they talked, and it wasn't long before they were faced with the bouncer who, true to An's observations, didn't bother carding them. Instead, he seemed to stare for several moments before giving any indication that he had even noticed them standing in front him.

He took one look at Kirihara's toned body and  _dare you dare me_ smile and let him in without bothering to check his ID. Then he fixed his eyes on An, who shifted a little underneath his stare. He nodded. "Go in."

Kirihara was waiting for her at the door—sudden warmth shot through An's veins—and upon seeing that she too had been admitted, pushed open the door and walked in. An followed as quickly as her shoes would allow.

It was dark, and the music was loud. The men there were older than her, and some looked at her leeringly. Wispy girls who  _had_  to have been underage walked around in slinky nothings, sidling up to men and shamelessly collecting free drinks. An lifted her chin, decidedly unafraid ( _Kirihara's right there and he's crazy but not an idiot and not a jerk… usually_ )and stepped past them. Kirihara glanced at her, then glanced away, veering straight to the bar.

"Two shots," he said immediately to the bartender, a pretty young thing no older than twenty-five. She smiled flirtatiously at him and set to work. Kirihara settled on a barstool, and gestured for An to do the same. When the pretty bartender returned and set the two glasses in front of Kirihara, he waved her away and looked at An expectantly, who arched an eyebrow in return.

"I hope you're drinking those on your own, 'cause…" An began.

He snorted. "What a wuss," he said, echoing her words from earlier.

"Hey!"

"Drink like a man," he ordered, and slammed the shot glass down in front of her.

An glared.

"What, little princess Tachibana An can't hold her alcohol?" he taunted. "Can't handle a little vodka? Can't make it in the real world?"

Loud music pounded in her ears, made her brave, throw caution to the wind. "I'll think about it," she said carelessly, "if you do two shots first."

Kirihara was a wild, haphazard mess of black curls and vivid green eyes. He gave a slow, dangerous smile, then said mockingly, "Anything for my little princess."

An waited strategically until he had begun his first shot before she said, "What am I, your daughter?"

Kirihara choked on his drink, which presumably went burning down the wrong pipe, and as he coughed and coughed, An laughed and laughed.

There was something just  _right_  about Kirihara at a club—something right about him in such a loud, adrenaline-run setting, something right about him in a dark, dark room where his eyes glowed like lighters. She watched as he threw back his second shot with all the confidence of someone who knew he wasn't a lightweight. It seemed so natural that he would know where New York's nightlife resided, and it seemed just as natural that he would be a part of it. If she tried to describe his energy, his character aesthetically—the only word for it would be  _sublime_. Greater than life, beyond calculation, wild and raw and relentless and uncontrolled. She forgot it sometimes. The five years they spent apart had clearly calmed him down,  _sublimated_  him. But there was always that hum of energy running just underneath his skin, and it was all the more visible now, in the dark, electric setting of the dance club. It was like the adrenaline all around him drew out his own electricity, steadily—if temporarily—undoing half a decade's worth of sublimation.

But—

"Why now?" An wondered as he finished.  _Why take me with you now?_

He shrugged. "Just because." He gestured to the dance floor. "It feels…" He seemed to struggle with his words. "It doesn't feel real sometimes. Or it feels  _surreal_. Like you don't have to think about anything else." He stopped. "I needed that sometimes, in Japan. At Rikkai. And with all the shit that's been going on lately…

"It just makes you feel  _alive_ , y'know?" As if to prove his point, he left his drink on the counter and plunged into the crowd of dancers, just close enough to be within An's line of vision.

Then he was moving his legs, his body, running his hands through his hair to brush them away from his eyes, pulsating with the beat of the bass in a way that An hadn't imagined him capable of doing. The pretty bartender whistled, and a few clubbers stopped to stare.

Maybe it was the alcohol that gave him that flush—maybe it was dancing in the hot, hot club. But then he stopped mid-turn and looked at her with that flushed, glowing countenance and suddenly she was at a complete loss.

Two quick strides and he had crossed back over to meet her, standing barely a foot away.

He mock bowed and reached for her hand.

Without thinking, and without a word, she gave it to him.

Tonight, they were both looking for escape. What was Kirihara trying to escape from, she wondered?

She decided it didn't make a difference, and danced. He spun her, twirl her, did silly dance moves that made her laugh and elaborate ones that made her clap. She was caught up in him, his crazy hair and static-green eyes. They glowed in the dark, dark club, and told tales of wildness, craziness, and raw enthusiasm. They told her he was happy to be there, happy to be there dancing with her—not just happy but  _excited_ , and in one intense, passionate moment, An hoped fiercely that her eyes said the same.

 _This is fun_ , she realized.  _This is what I'm looking for._

It wasn't perfect, but it was something, and it was  _him_ , and for now that was enough, because—

For now, for the rest of her stay in America, Kirihara was not the boy who hurt her brother, who mocked her friends. He wasn't the junior ace of Rikkai. He wasn't her enemy.

(Just dance, lose herself in the moment, don't think, don't think, dance, dance, dance—)

For now, he was just a boy, just Kirihara Akaya, just someone with electric energy and a passionate smile. It thrilled her.

Because for the first time in a long time (and let Kirihara be testament to the fact), Tachibana An was finally dancing for herself.


	7. September 30 - October 10

**Lighters, 7**

_his past checkered like checkerboards in Central Park_

_Mirrored Sea_ , Passion Pit

 

 

 

The water bottle was cool against An's skin, and she unscrewed the cap with sweaty, almost trembling fingers as she sat down on a bench by the courts. In the background, she could vaguely hear the sound of the other girls practicing, tennis balls bouncing against the hard blue courts and hitting racquet strings. She could hear the sound of chatter ("How were the econ problem sets?" "Are you kidding? Haven't started—") like small, muted waves, rising and falling with the current.

The tennis team met three times a week, with tournaments on a weekly basis. An strongly suspected that the team was not expecting much out of her as an exchange student, but An had made her peace with that.

_I'm not here for tennis_.

Even if she was arguably better than any of the other players, and also happened to take the sport more seriously. Y'know, not that she was sore about it or anything.

Except she totally kind of was.

With the kickoff of the regular season also came a change in the attitudes of select players, who An strongly suspected were far more concerned with earning the position of captain (leadership positions on a resume) than with anything else. The sport was not something for enjoyment—it was a stepping-stone.

An chugged her water and set down the bottle, wiping sweat away from her face with a towel. The weather was hot—she was quickly learning that New York did not in fact have the seasons of fall and spring, but only summer and winter—and she was exhausted. It was 5 PM and she had just finished her classes an hour ago, was riddled with problem sets to do, and really just wanted a break. But there was something so cathartic about chasing a tennis ball, running back and forth on a blue, blue court, blue like oceans, blue like ice, blue like cold things that An wanted to be around because it was just so damn _hot_ in New York—

She stood and picked up her racquet. The varsity members were practicing independently, some with each other, some with ball machines, and some had wandered off into the weight room, presumably lifting things An couldn't even begin to dream of. She twirled her racquet a little as she walked, wondering what to do next. The ball machines? Grab a teammate?

"Are you contemplating the meaning of life, or are you just thinking about how attractive I am?"

"I thought those two were the same thing," An deadpanned, and twirled around to face Kirihara, whose lips twisted into a smirk at her words.

"I didn't think you were smart enough to know," he drawled. "Get on the court, punk."

She grinned.

For one reason or another, Kirihara always hit with her for half an hour or so before he went to meet with his special coaches, whenever that was. So long as they were both on the courts at the same time, he would find her, and An marveled a little at the fact. _Poor kid must not have many friends_ , she mused. _I'm a real philanthropist, I am._

"Are we still good for yakiniku after?" he asked as he served.

That was their tradition, new and fragile though it was—An went to practice, Kirihara stepped in to hit with her for half an hour before going to meet with his special coaches, and the two of them met up in front of the fitness center to take the train downtown for yakiniku after.

She called out an affirmative as she ran for the ball.

His return was quick. "Okay, but this time you're treating."

"I am poor, starving college student with no money for anything but ramen," she shouted back at him.

"Ramen and yakiniku are totally the same thing. They're both… from Asia." He leaned for a smash.

"You know what else is from Asia?" An grinned.

"Are you gonna say 'your mom'? Because if you are, I don't think we can be friends anymore."

_Friends_.

She thought back to the party, to Kenny, to _I thought we were friends, my bad_ , to those green eyes, bright like headlights, glowing like something radioactive. She could see them even in the dim frat house, even among the dozens upon dozens of drunken college students swarming the party.

They didn't talk about that night. They didn't talk about the night after, either, when they snuck into a club and danced until three in the morning.

An remembered the night in fragments, in word pieces ( _"Why are taxis yellow?" "Because you're_ smashed _—"_ ) and in scenes ( _the sidewalk, spinning and spinning and maybe that was her, maybe she was spinning, spinning right into his arms and he was laughing and laughing_ —), scenes divorced from her body. She had felt like she was watching the world as it went by, like she was watching scenes from a film, and every blink was like a camera shutter. Every time she blinked she was somewhere else, but every time she blinked Kirihara was right there with her.

It had been her first time drinking, _really_ drinking, and she'd have been lying if she said she wasn't nervous, but that nervousness went away so quickly on the dance floor. Among all the twisting, dancing bodies An was just another reveler, another drunken reveler who wanted to be a bit _more_ than life. And it was probably fact that no one understood that better than Kirihara. He matched her drink for drink (and then some) until common sense gripped her and told her to stop. They stumbled towards the subway together and made it at least halfway before they looked at each other, burst into drunken laughter and decided that it would probably be smarter to split a cab.

But they didn't talk about that night.

It was always there, though, not like a wall between them but like some kind of string, tying her to him and sometimes it made her feel warm, a little shivery, a little happy. It made her feel a bit closer to him, and a bit closer to forgiveness. It reminded her a little of who he was, and it confused her. For now, though, she decided to be content with the warm feeling, the happy feeling.

She would figure out the rest as she went along.

"We're not friends," An called to him from the other side of the net. "We are master and indentured servant." She planted herself squarely in the middle of the court and put her hands on her hips, racquet dangling at an awkward angle from her grip. "You, my indentured servant, are treating me to dinner."

Kirihara's return zoomed right past her. "Indentured servants are too poor to treat anyone! Maybe if you treated me better I'd be _able_ to treat you. But I can't. So." His smile showed teeth.

"So I guess we're both starving," An sighed.

He tossed his head back and laughed.

* * *

By the time Kirihara finished his practice, it was 9 PM. An leaned against the wall of the fitness center, browsing the news on her phone and holding a bag full of reading she hadn't yet done for her classes. It was too dark to do it anyway, she reasoned, and reading was meant to be done in the daytime when she wouldn't have to strain her eyes. She was making the healthy decision. Definitely not trying to convince herself of anything.

She felt more than saw him amble out of the center, curls damp from his shower and pressed against his scalp, ruffled by the warmish early October breeze. She pushed herself off the wall of the center and started walking toward the train station, not bothering to turn around and check if he was following. (He was.)

"They _beat me down_ today," he said to her back, a little amused, a little annoyed. "I'm not sure I want to walk."

"Shall I leave you here?" An inquired, arching an eyebrow.

"Just carry me," he demanded, and without further warning, collapsed and draped himself over her back. An's knees buckled under the added 150 pounds of college-boy.

"Off!" she laughed, jutting her elbows into his chest. He made a groaning noise that somewhat resembled a dying motor engine and just latched onto her more firmly. She rolled her eyes a little and began, "Here rests Kirihara Akaya, dead at—wait, how old are you?"

"I just turned eighteen," he smugly said into her hair. It was ticklish in a way that An firmly tried not to think about. She stubbornly put one foot forward, then the other. If Kirihara could walk with 150 pounds of boy-weight, so could she. "M'birthday's in September."

"I'm _older_ than you!" An crowed. "My birthday's in March. Eat it."

"I _wanna_ eat something," Kirihara said ruefully, "but you're not carrying me to that yakiniku place."

Then she stopped. "Your birthday's in _September_? We missed it?"

He was quiet for a bit. "Yeah. It was just before we fought that one time."

She was quiet, too. In her head she heard, _I thought we were friends. My bad._

But then he continued—"Eighteen's a dumb birthday, though. You can't do shit when you're eighteen in America. Can't drink, can't smoke, can't even go to clubs or bars or anything. All you get to do is _vote_." His breath was hot against her ear. "Who the fuck wants to _vote_? I'm not even _from_ here. I done fucked up deciding to study abroad here."

An snorted. "There are plenty of things you done fucked up. Let's not get me started on _that_."

She could feel his smile against her skin. "Yeah. But let's talk about _you._ "

"I thought you'd be too egotistic to even try talking about anything that wasn't yourself," she quipped.

"I think you're confusing me for Atobe," Kirihara replied easily. "Not that I can blame you. He's _almost_ as dashing as I am."

"I think you mean his head is almost as big as yours."

He sneered. "Don't be crazy. No one's head is as big as his. That's why his hair is so long. To distract from how huge his head is."

An pondered this. "I should think that that would only draw more attention to how big his head is. Glad you're not my stylist. You have no sense for this kind of thing."

" _Anyway_."

She laughed a little. "I saw him the other day, by the way. His cousin is actually my roommate. Did you know that?"

"Don't think I've ever met your roommate," Kirihara replied. Disinterest seeped into his tone. An felt vaguely annoyed, then caught herself. _Why should I care that he doesn't care about my personal life_? And then— _that's not fair, because he_ does _._

Even if he didn't always care about the other people in it.

(Was that why he had gotten over the rift with her brother so easily?)

"Well, they're really different," An said, putting the issue out of her mind. "But they're a lot alike in other ways, too. It was really great seeing Atobe after so long. I think he's doing well for himself in the UK and all. He goes to Oxford now. His family has a ridiculous house there."

"At Oxford?"

"No, in England."

"And why do you know so much about his personal life?"

"We're long-lost siblings, Atobe and I," An mused. "Separated at birth, as it were. Then we met without knowing our relationship and fell in love. We were engaged to be married, too, but then this pesky thing with incest laws came into play and our plans were foiled. Now we're writing the script for our autobiographical movie. We're getting ready to send out copies to some big producers soon and we're really excited about the possibilities—it'll make it big, I can tell. I might even be able to get you a ticket to the premiere."

At some point during her speech, Kirihara had extricated himself from her person and settled for simply resting his chin on her head. "Right."

"Why, are you jealous of our true love?"

"As if anyone could possibly be better than me," he scoffed.

"Yes, me," An responded sweetly.

He flicked her forehead from his position behind her, and she stepped on his foot.

The ride downtown to the yakiniku place was short and companionable. They spent it debating important, socially critical issues ("Bagels or muffins for breakfast?" "Cream cheese or butter?"), and An wondered, not for the first time, how they got along so well.

Perhaps it was just the feeling of finding a companion to speak Japanese with (true), a feeling of _home_ (nostalgia?), and certainly with Kirihara she felt a sense of comfort that she felt with few other people ( _bizarre_ ). But it couldn't have been intrinsic to her language or her country—she felt an inclination to spend her time with Kirihara far more than she felt any sort of inclination to her roommate, or to Atobe (though that was another type of inclination entirely).

Maybe it was tennis, playing with someone who understood its history, _her_ history—but Kirihara had never treated her like a piece of history, his or hers.

They sat together on the cold plastic seats of the subway car, loud rattling in the background. Their heads were ducked close together, sharing a pair of earphones listening to a new song Kirihara had found on the radio. An suddenly asked, "Why did you do that? Back at the coffee place."

Kirihara's eyes flickered with recognition, but still he said, "What?"

"At the coffee place. With Kenny."

…

" _Don't you have somewhere you need to be?"_

…

" _Stay away from Kenny."_

…

An met his gaze, and hoped her eyes were clear and unwavering. Hoped he could see her intentions clearly. _Why did you scare Kenny off? Why did you keep him from talking to me?_

He stared back at her, and finally he shrugged. An's earphone fell out of her ear with the motion, and fell onto her lap. "I dunno," he muttered. "You just looked so—bored. _Boring._ Like you didn't wanna be there. Y'know? So. I didn't want you to be there."

_And what kind of an answer is that_ , An was about to say, but then he continued—

"Also, Kenny's kind of a weird guy." His nose crinkled with distaste in a strangely adorable gesture. "He…" He moved his arms a little in a way that was meant to demonstrate _something_ , but god help An if she was supposed to tell what that was. "He… He does stuff. I don't really know _what_ stuff, but it ain't stuff you wanna get involved with. I think. Maybe."

"Where'd you hear this from?"

"I dunno. People. People on the team, people on the courts, people I met on campus, I guess. He kept—he kept _talking_ to me when I first got here. So I heard some things. He keeps a high profile. But only in the ways he wants to, I think. I think he gets away with a lot of shit."

She watched him, prompting him to continue silently, and watched as his expression darkened. Watched as he finally muttered, "I'd watch out for Kenny."

She was quiet for a moment, and finally piped up, "I think this is just a battle of testosterone. You're just uncomfortable with the idea of another alpha male."

"You think I'm an alpha male?" Kirihara deadpanned. "Aw, shucks."

"There's only one way to resolve this. What _really_ needs to happen is a fight to the death. With butter knives."

He snorted, took the fallen earphone off her lap and plugged it back into her ear. His fingers brushed against her skin for the slightest of seconds. "Yeah."

* * *

(Catherine finally returned to the Earnshaw Manor at Wuthering Heights. She wore a beautiful dress and, after her time with the Lintons, had become a fine young lady, well-educated and graceful. Heathcliff excitedly tried to greet her, but he was rebuffed and ordered to greet her as a servant, rather than as a companion. Catherine, having grown used to the fine manners and upbringing of the children in the Linton household, called Heathcliff dirty upon seeing him.

Heathcliff, wounded and heartbroken, stormed away.)

* * *

October 10th saw the rise of chillier weather. New York never became _truly_ chilly until at least Halloween, but global warming was doing weird stuff to the climate, stuff that An did not particularly care to wrap her head around, though she _did_ really want another scarf to wrap around her neck, because _damn_ was the wind hurting her face.

To her right, Kirihara was admiring various objects in store window displays, bumping into tourists and slouching aggressively as he walked. They were on their way to check out a new sports shop downtown, and decided to walk the ninety-something blocks along Broadway from 116th Street, where Columbia was, to 20th Street, where the new store was.

"The weather's great," Kirihara had insisted when An questioned the amount of sense his decision made, and she'd be damned if she ever trusted _his_ weather forecasting again. The smug bastard was in a warm leather jacket, long pants, and a pair of boots. If he didn't look warm, he at least looked warmer than her.

"I hate you," she muttered under her breath.

He looked at her, bouncing a little on her toes and shivering, and said smugly, "Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of me being super warm and comfortable."

"I _said_ , I hope you get hit by a car."

"At least hope it's a _nice_ car. Like a Ferrari. A red one."

His cheeks were red, An noticed. They were red and bitten by the cold, but it was a gentle kind of red, that spread slowly and warmly and looked soft to the touch. So different from the redness in his eyes when he played tennis. At least back then.

_Even Kirihara has shades_ , she thought.

What would her brother think of the shade she was seeing now? The one who walked with her ninety straight blocks down Broadway? The one who laughed with her and took her home when she drank too much, the one who made her mad at parties but who came back and forgave her and who—was her friend (maybe)?

Would he think it was real?

But that Kirihara had existed (maybe?) long before Columbia, long before college and America and nightclubs and shots. He existed when she pushed him down the stairs and he defended her, covered for her. He existed when he took the high road and avoided Echizen Ryoma's knee in that one pick-up match at camp.

She wondered, and dreamed of a world where she had never pushed him down the stairs, where he had never injured her brother's knee, where he had never tried to hurt Fuji Syusuke or rely on his Devil Mode as a crutch.

What if they had just met as—a girl and a boy, studying abroad together? What then?

Kind of dreamily, she whispered, "Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have any history?"

His walking slowed, and she slowed to match his pace. "What do you mean? Like class? Yeah." He thought for a moment. "History is kind of dumb. Like, why do I need to know all the names of the different factions in World War II? Why do I need to know the names of all these captains and lieutenants and whatever? Ridiculous."

She punched him lightly in the arm. He grabbed his arm in mock-pain. "No, stupid. I mean—what if _we_ didn't have any history?" She felt a little dumb saying it now, but might as well roll with it. "No Fudomine or Seigaku or Rikkai or Hyotei or anything. Just—nothing. What if none of that was a thing?"

And now she felt _really_ dumb for saying it. No Rikkai? Rikkai's tennis team was, if not as close as family, then at least as structured and loyal as an army. And Fudomine—Fudomine _was_ her family.

She waited to be rebuffed, but instead Kirihara stopped walking entirely, tilted his head a little and looked at her like she was made of something strange, something he couldn't wrap his head around.

"What?" she finally asked, a little defensive.

"We don't," he said.

"We don't what?"

"We don't have history. Not right now. Not really." He turned his back to her to look at something in a store window. "I mean, do we? Right now we're just university students in New York. And we're going to a sports shop." He looked at her over his shoulder. The leaves were turning red, turning golden, turning brown, but his eyes were green like some kind of eternal summer. "What else is there?"

She stared back. There were so many _colors_ in his eyes.

Then she smiled and stepped forward, leaned into him a bit. He was warm. "Yeah."


	8. October 13 - October 15

**Lighters** , **8**

_we'll be forever young_

_We R Who We R,_  Kesha

* * *

Maria was on her way to class when she spotted them.

There they were.

There they  _always_  were, she thought. An and Akaya, lounging on the campus lawn, heads ducked close together, laughing about something only they knew. There was something about them that she couldn't quite pinpoint, but it was something the entire tennis team had noticed. That there was a kind of  _energy_  about them, something that made them the same sort of person. Woven from the same thread.

No matter how much An played off her international student status and claimed she was only on the tennis team for fun, Maria could tell differently—An played tennis with a kind of vigor, a kind of hunger. Tennis meant something to her, meant something more than it did to the other players on the team. Tennis was more than just a varsity sport to her.

And everyone knew Akaya, the tennis prodigy who moved like electricity, who played tennis like it ran in his blood, like drive literally coursed through his veins and compelled him to. He played tennis because—and Maria didn't doubt it—he was meant to.

But it wasn't just that they both played tennis and were good at it.

Maria watched as Akaya suddenly jumped up, watched as An egged him on and taunted, and suddenly Akaya was doing cartwheels and An was laughing. Other students turned to watch them, watching with something that resembled curiosity and confusion. Maria didn't blame them—rarely did she see two people who always looked like they were having so much  _fun_. They looked like they could have fun doing anything.

"Your cartwheels are pathetic," An was saying as Maria walked nearer them. "Watch a  _real_  pro do them."

"A real pro? Don't see any here," he answered. "Besides me, I mean. But I can't watch myself cartwheel… unless you love my cartwheeling so much that you want to record me doing it?"

"I don't think anyone could love you that much except yourself. And maybe your mom," An added ponderingly, as an afterthought.

"Tell that to the millions and billions and trillions of tennis fans I'm going to have once I'm a tennis-playing superstar."

"You moron, do you even know how many people there are on Earth?"

"More people will demand to be born literally  _for_  my tennis."

"And you say your head isn't as big as Atobe's," An snorted.

"Not as big," he insisted, "but definitely ten times more attractive."

She shoved him amiably. "Move over and make room for a  _real_  cartwheeler."

"Shall I bring you a cart to wheel, O Great Wheeler of Carts?" he drawled.

"I'll  _show_  you how to wheel a cart," she said seriously, and performed a neat cartwheel in the middle of the lawn. A few students moved their bags over to make room.

"That wasn't a cartwheel," Akaya said when she was finished. "That was a flop. Literally a flop. You literally just flopped on the grass. You call that shit a cartwheel?"

"You wanna go?" An demanded.

"Oh, I wanna  _go_ ," Akaya answered dangerously.

"Thumb war to the death. Best twenty-six out of fifty-one."

"You're on."

And they were at it again, sprawled on the grass and thumb-wrestling like the world was going to end.

Then—

"You cheater," An hissed. "You can't do that!"

"Can't do what?" Akaya demanded. "Have bigger thumbs than you?"

"Yes!"

"It was  _your_  idea to thumb-wrestle!"

"Well, it was also my idea to win!" An argued.

"Bad idea." Akaya's grin was slow and cocky.

"Yeah? Let's have an English-language-competency competition."

"Only wusses do those."

"Wusses who can't speak English," An pointed out.

Akaya folded his arms behind his head and flopped down onto the grass, kicking his legs up in the air in a stretch. "English is a dumb language."

"Says the punk studying abroad in  _America._ "

"I don't need to speak English to play awesome tennis."

An either couldn't argue that logic or just didn't want to bother, and suddenly perked up. "Race you twice around campus?"

Akaya jumped up and was running down College Walk and out the gates before An had even finished. "Readyset _go_!" he shouted, leaving her behind in his wake.

" _Jerk!_ " she laughed, running after him.

Maria watched, half bemused, half amused. Akaya, she noticed, ran just quickly enough to stay a few feet ahead, but slowly enough for An to catch up a reasonable distance despite his head start.

 _The weirdest couple_ , Maria thought, and kept walking.

* * *

Edgar Linton, gentle and a gentleman, but also weak and frail, has begun to court Catherine. Catherine flirts back and reciprocates, behaving like a proper lady with him. Heathcliff, watching their interactions, becomes increasingly aware of the distance between their social statuses.

Even so, Catherine consistently returns to Heathcliff, spending time with him. With him, she behaves as she always has—the wild, unladylike, spirited girl and the gypsy boy.

When the Linton siblings—Edgar and his sister, Isabella—come to visit Catherine at Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff takes care to be "good" and wash himself clean, dress himself nicely to look presentable for their company. Unbeknownst to him, Mrs. Linton had only allowed Edgar and Isabella to visit under the condition that Heathcliff, the infamous gypsy boy, be kept away from them. Accordingly, Heathcliff is locked away in the attic until the end of dinner. Before he can be locked away, however, Edgar spots him and makes a comment about Heathcliff's hair.

Catherine, unhappy with this treatment of Heathcliff, sooner leaves Edgar and Isabella Linton at dinner and runs up immediately after dinner to see Heathcliff in the locked room.

* * *

"So how sick of you is your tennis instructor?" Tachibana wondered, as she approached the tennis center.

Akaya snorted. "Are you kidding? He's  _in love with me_. He wants me to be the best man at his wedding.  _And_  his firstborn is going to be named after me."

She grinned at him. "That's it? All you get is a baby named after you? If it were me, I would've asked  _for_  the firstborn."

"And that's why you'll never be supreme dictator overlord," he declared. "Babies aregross. And you have to change them and clean them and feed them. I could be playing tennis."

"You are playing tennis," she laughed, pushing open the doors to walk into the center.

The familiar blue courts. The  _pok_  of the ball. It wasn't always that his schedule lined up so nicely with Tachibana's—but he found that he liked walking with her to the tennis center, liked talking to her about absolutely nothing. Found that he could do it for hours and hours. He felt—something fizzy, something that lit him up a little.

Turning to her, he began to say something snarky—

—and then spotted Kenny.

 _Great_ , he thought grouchily.

And sure enough, Kenny caught his eye, brightened, and jogged over. "Akaya!" he exclaimed, like they were best friends. There was something so superficial about him—he had no doubt that Kenny wouldn't give him the time of day if Akaya weren't a tennis prodigy.

(A  _hot_  tennis prodigy.)

(And smart.)

(And—)

"Yes, my day's been fine," Tachibana was saying. Her smile was polite, her voice neutral.

Akaya watched their small talk and ignored the twist in his stomach, turning to reach for his racquet.

"Akaya, are you on your way to practice?" Kenny asked.

"What?" Akaya responded absently. Maybe he  _should've_  taken the firstborn. Raised the child in his own image. Kirihara Akaya the Second. They could've wreaked havoc on the universe together, divided and conquered.

But  _childcare_ … He crinkled his nose.

Then he noticed that Kenny was staring at him. "What?" Akaya repeated.

"I asked you how your day's been," Kenny replied. He was still smiling that Kenny-smile, but his voice sounded faintly frustrated. "Twice."

"Oh." Akaya shrugged. That wasn't the kind of statement that warranted an answer. "Later, Tachibana." He was early for his practice, but.

"Bye," she answered. "Next time just take the firstborn!" He grinned.

But then a hand latched onto his shoulder.

"Wait! Why don't we play a match?" Kenny suggested.

Akaya turned around slowly. There was a glint in Kenny's eyes, and it  _annoyed_ Akaya, but fell short of motivating him to do anything about it.

 _This is dumb_ , he thought.  _I'll win_.

Akaya didn't pick fights he knew he would win.

It was why he turned most pick-up matches down. Tennis was fun when it was challenging, was fun when he was playing to win and wasn't sure that he would.

Or it was fun when he was just playing, just playing and playing and playing with no end in sight, just forehands and backhands and volleys and smashes. In those cases it was fun because he  _wasn't_  playing to win, it was fun because he was just  _playing_ , just endless rushes of adrenaline and energy and movement.

Like with Tachibana.

But most pickup matches were neither, and Akaya looked at Kenny, a little askance. "Nah, I got practice. I'm gonna sit this one out," he drawled, and was about to lope away, but then—

"Come on," Kenny called. He slung one arm around Tachibana, who had stilled and was simply watching him warily. Usually Tachibana was—like an  _electron_ (Akaya  _totally_  paid attention during that one physics class, swear to God), moving and always moving, but right now she was just  _there_ , still and stolid like a wooden block. "I know we're not as good as your trainers, but men's varsity has to mean something to you." Kenny laughed. It was amicable, except—except was it? Akaya wasn't sure. When Kenny smiled, the corners of his lips curved at the edges, arched to show teeth. Akaya never really knew when Kenny was laughing  _with_  someone or  _at_ someone, or both. There was something very self-assured, almost mean, about Kenny. And Akaya knew people like that ( _Niou, Niou, Niou_ ) but Akaya didn't fancy himself nearly that complicated. He dismissed people he didn't like, and had fun with people he did like. Why did things need to be any more complicated than that?

Tachibana was so much better when she was happy, bouncing, energetic, sunny. Sometimes being with her made Akaya feel recharged, full of energy that was almost nervous. Made him feel like they were on the same wavelength. She was so bland and dull now, just like  _every_  time she was with Kenny. Even back to the very first time he had seen her in New York, at that coffee place, smiling plastic smiles and talking to Kenny like something smooth and slow and dark and cold. Even back then, Akaya thought he must have known—that she was an energy-girl, a sunshine kind of girl, who was being muted in that coffee shop.

He looked at her, but she was looking at Kenny's arm, draped over her shoulder, like it was something bizarre.

He sighed a little.  _Look at me, sighing. It's like I'm fifty. Who knows the shit you gotta deal with when you're fifty? Taxes, kids, capybaras… Did Rafael Nadal come before the capybara, or did the capybara come before him?_ Akaya sure as hell had never heard of a capybara until he found the Internet article comparing Nadal photos with capybara photos.

"The capybara definitely came after," he muttered.

"What?" Kenny looked confused. Tachibana was looking at him again, those grey eyes focused on Akaya, only Akaya.

"I said I'll play," Akaya finally replied. "But only one set." There was a ripple of murmurs in reaction to his words. He wasn't  _happy_  about playing—he didn't  _want_ to, it was gonna be a massive waste of time and it was so _dumb_ , he'd get more out of a ball machine, what the hell was Kenny trying to prove anyway—

Kirihara Akaya didn't play with scrubs, and Kenny did not merit his time of day.

But if it would get Kenny off his case, off his back, preferably far away, somewhere like South Africa…

He trudged towards the court, his racquet dangling limply from his grip. God, this was so dumb.

"Don't get too excited, Kirihara," Tachibana called, sounding amused. "You might break something."

He didn't even turn his head to face her, just called back, "Like your face?"

"My face is  _pretty_ , unlike yours."

"Not for much longer!"

"You watch out, Kirihara Akaya. Don't sleep easy tonight, 'cause when you're in bed in the dark and least expecting it…"

"You watch me sleep? I know I'm unbelievably attractive, but you gotta have  _some_ boundaries, Tachibana."

Kenny cleared his throat, and Akaya's face, which had been brightening with the progression of his conversation with Tachibana, shut down again.  _Right. Match._ Tennis was fun, it was always fun, but something about the combination of a match with no challenge and  _Kenny_  made it—routine. Routine and sour.

"You wanna serve?" Akaya asked, and without waiting for a response, shuffled to the baseline.

Kenny served.

It was an  _okay_  serve, was probably fine, but Akaya had spent five years surrounded by some of the best players in Japan, and another few months around the best trainers in the United States. He whipped it back in a return ace.

He won the first game in minutes.

("Four return aces, holy  _shit_ ," someone whispered, and "Shhhhh!" someone hissed back—)

Akaya dug a ball out of his pocket to serve, and from the corner of his eye he could see Tachibana shift.

 _Relax_ , he thought at her.  _I don't need my Knuckle Serve for this punk_. He looked at Kenny, in ready position, and thought,  _Aces. I want aces._

And, faintly,  _Could also really go for some chips and guac right now._

He always knew when he was playing a good game. When the ball arched naturally into the air, when he swung his racquet through the air like he was meant to. He loved those moments. It was part of why he loved tennis so much to begin with—because it was natural like breathing, like something he was born to do. It was one of those moments when he felt like every part of his body and mind was cooperating, working together toward something every part of his body  _loved_. In moments like those, he was barely thinking—just moving, just swinging, just enjoying. Even playing against Kenny, even playing against a ball machine. Something about his body just felt  _right_  when he was playing tennis.

Two games, then three, then four, then Akaya blinked, and it was over.

"Game, set, match, Akaya," called someone from the stands. "Kenny, you got  _wrecked_."

("That was twenty minutes. That was _twenty minutes_. What the _fuck_?" "I guess that's why he won't play with us." "Man, his signature techniques are  _killer_ —")

Akaya turned away, a little smug, a little annoyed.  _I didn't_ use _any special techniques. Give me more credit than that._

Kenny did, in fact, look quite pissed. But he laughed, called out, "That's why I want you on the team, Akaya. You'd take us so far." His words were edged, laced with something Akaya didn't like.

The courts, which had been riddled with whispers and murmurs, fell silent. Just the sound of Akaya's tennis shoes scuffing the ground as he shuffled along, towards Tachibana. The sound of Akaya ignoring Kenny.

She was staring at him, too, her mouth slightly open and her eyes aglow with something—excitement? Awe? Surprise? To really think of it, Akaya realized that Tachibana had probably never seen her play a full match against anyone, not since—not since middle school. He wondered what she thought. Was he better now? (Of course he was.) Better than her old friends? Better than her brother?

He preened a little to think he had awed her, and as he got closer her face softened into a grin.

"You little show-off  _punk_ ," she said affectionately, and mussed his hair. "Didn't even use any of your moves."

He sputtered. "I'll show you who's the punk," he snarled, and lunged. She squeaked and jumped backwards, and Akaya's arms closed over empty air. "Get back here!"

Tachibana cackled and ran, in loops and loops around the stands he chased and chased, and laughed. Faintly, he was aware of Kenny putting away his racquet, talking to some girls milling by the courts. Faintly, he was aware of stares upon stares, people still talking about the match, if it could even be called that.

("Akaya never plays—I can't believe we got to see." "Who  _is_  he?" someone asked, and someone else shrugged, pointed to Tachibana. "Ask  _her_.")

* * *

It was a bit later that An finally stopped running, caught her breath, just as Kirihara practically tackled her on the courts.

She watched as Kirihara began to put away his racquet, carefully zipping it into its bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He was on his way to the ball machines now, she knew, and absently wondered what that might look like.

He had surprised her with that match. With the maturity of his play. She wouldn't have put it past him to use the Knuckle Serve on Kenny just to prove a point, or just to be mean. And when he pulled that ball out of his pocket, she was nervous.

(Hospitals and crutches and red,  _red_  things—)

But then it was just a serve. Just an incredible serve, that cut through the air like a bullet, like a laser.

The look on Kenny's face—the look of absolute annoyance, distaste, resentment, envy—blatantly apparent for all to see.

She smiled.

When Kirihara turned to look over at her, he raised an eyebrow and smirked. "What are you grinning about?" he demanded. "It's creepy."

"Thinking about my future Wimbledon championship title," she quipped. "It's glorious."

"And imaginary," he pointed out.

"Not for long," she insisted. "I'm dropping out of college to join the pro leagues. My personal trainer told me it's not long before I can take on Serena Williams. You know, she's not doing great this year. Only her  _second_  Serena Slam, gosh. She's really slacking."

Kirihara snorted. "Yeah, you'd think she'd try to do  _better_  than just being the best female tennis player of all time. Nothing like you, right?"

"In my head, I've already won Wimbledon ten times." An rocked a little on her toes. "The rest of the world just doesn't know it yet."

"I hate it when that happens," Kirihara agreed.

He was looking at her with those eyes, those lighter eyes, green like something electric, something radioactive. It made her feel—well. Happy, she thought. Overwhelmed with something warm, something bright. "Um," she said.

" _Um_ ," he mocked, and began to lope away. "Ball practice," he said by way of parting. "Try to hold yourself up without me."

"But how  _ever_  will I survive without a green-eyed punk as company?" she called after him, grinning.

All he did was raise a hand in a parting salute, but she could envision his face as clearly as if she were seeing it herself—that cocky grin, curly black hair falling into those green, green eyes.

She stood there for a bit, just watching him go.

Well.

That was enough socializing for one day, she decided, and made to leave. There was only so much socializing she could handle in one day. Tachibana An had  _things_  to do, places to be. Like world-saving. Or underwater basket-weaving. Or homework. Mostly homework. She really ought to be excused from having to do homework with all the world-saving she did as a superhero—

"Are you already going?"

An turned around, and saw Kenny, smiling at her. Unconsciously, she took a step back. "Yeah, you know how it is being a superhero," she answered automatically, then realized what she just said.  _May as well roll with it._ "College student by day, justice in the name of the moon by night."

He laughed, and An considered him. Kenny was attractive, sure, in a conventional kind of way. Neatly cropped brown-blonde hair, a refined sort of nose, dark sensuous eyes framed by dark sensuous lashes, and an easy smile. But it was something about him—the way he bared his teeth when he smiled, the opacity of his eyes.

And then there were Kirihara's rare but intense warnings about him.

"How are you finding classes?" he asked.

"Pretty well," she answered.

A dead answer if she ever heard one, and she was about to make to leave again, but then he said, "Oh, good. I don't think I ever heard what you were taking?"

That was another thing about Kenny. Even when she tried to shut him down, he would engage her. It almost made her feel guilty for not having much to say to him—he seemed like such a social, friendly person. Even though she didn't feel quite right around him.

But there were people like that in the world, people who were a strange combination of forward and—she didn't know what word to put to it, but perhaps… perhaps predatory.

She knew boys like that. Boys like that were dangerous. Handsome boys who  _knew_ how handsome they were, who knew they could get away with things.

So she smiled a dim smile at him and said, "I've really got to go. People to save, problem sets to finish."

"Wait." He rested his hand on her shoulder, and her reaction was to jerk away, but his hand was gentle, just barely grazing her. She felt it send a shock through her body. He fixed his eyes on her, those dark, sensuous eyes, and she swallowed.

Kenny was—was attractive, charming, charismatic. The more he stared at her, the more she realized this. He  _was_ handsome. He was the kind of boy that An had dreamt of dabbling with when she was younger, when she was just the kid sister of Tachibana Kippei.

So maybe it wasn't so much that she resented his attention as—she just didn't know what to  _do_  with it. She wasn't sure she wanted to dabble anymore. And she wasn't sure she liked the feeling Kenny left her with—an unsure, dark, viscous kind of feeling. It left her feeling full of something uncertain, and now, just like she had in all her past interactions with him, she felt herself falling quiet, losing energy.

She felt a sort of chemistry with him, a sort of reaction. But where some reactions produced sparks, light, electricity, this reaction just left her silent and still.

He was some sort of teenage dream. But she wasn't sure that he was hers.

Then he smiled at her, a self-assured little thing, and patted her on the shoulder. "You had something there," he explained, in a low voice. "Something on your shoulder." His gaze flicked down to her shoulder, then back up to her eyes. Smiled a sly smile. "It's gone now."

Where Kirihara's eyes were bright, green things that lit her up up up, Kenny's slow velvet smile made her feel like she was being dragged down underwater.

"Oh," was all she said.

* * *

It was sometime later, when An was sitting in a lecture, that she realized something.

Despite the steep learning curve, English Literature had ended up being one of her favorite classes. It wasn't so much the class or the professor, perhaps, as it was the novel— _Wuthering Heights_  just resonated with her in a way that other books failed to. There was something about the characters, about the storyline, like it was a secret that she was privy to, like it was a love she had experienced before.

She loved Heathcliff and Catherine, even though she had gotten barely halfway through. She was as much a sucker for tall, dark, and handsome antiheroes as the next girl, but Heathcliff and Catherine were  _meant_  for each other in a way that normal people weren't, and she had gotten that from the first five chapters. The way how, even as Catherine was slowly being groomed into a proper lady, even as she was slowly being made to assimilate into high society, she was still drawn to Heathcliff inexplicably. How she was a proper lady with other people but with Heathcliff she was wild, untamed, all sharp tongues and fireworks. With other people she was contained, but with Heathcliff she was free.

In her latest reading for this week's lecture, Edgar Linton had proposed to Catherine. Catherine accepted (and when An read that line, she had hurled the book at the wall). Heathcliff's heart was, of course, broken, and he ran away.

But before he did, Catherine and her maid, Nelly, had a secret conversation where she explained why she was marrying Edgar Linton.

"She explains that her love for Linton is like the leaves on the trees—temporary, susceptible to change," a student says. The professor nods sagely. "And she marries Linton largely as a way to put  _her_  in a position to raise Heathcliff's own social status. Since as a woman she doesn't really have all that much power in society. Back then, anyway. She figures that if she marries up, she might be in a position to educate Heathcliff and help him move up too."

Another student chimes in, "And then she explains she's  _truly_  in love with Heathcliff, not Linton."

 _No shit,_ thinks An. "She adds that they're literally so much alike that they may as well be the same person," she says.

The professor turns to her, and An swallows. "How does Catherine describe it?" the professor asks.

An closed her eyes. " _Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same_ ," she recited, because she had read that line over and over again, like it was meant for her. " _Nelly, I_ am _Heathcliff_."

"And what did she mean by that?" the professor inquires.

"Well, in literature and philosophy there's the concept of  _Self_  and  _Other_ ," she replies slowly. "Otherness is the state of being different from and alien to the Self. It's kind of imperialistic.  _Other_  is something exclusionary, different from you, used to justify the domination of groups in the periphery, whereas Self is part of your own identity. It's a binary—a dichotomy. Like light and dark, or father and son, or inside and outside. And Catherine's saying that Edgar's outside, Edgar is on the other end of that binary, but Heathcliff is— _with_ her. She and Heathcliff can never drive each other away, because they're the same."

Even as she said it she felt mystified. Thought,  _Wouldn't I like to love like that?_

* * *

It was mid-October, and it was cold.

Akaya glanced to his left, where Tachibana was lounging on the grass, flipping through a book.  _Wuthering Heights,_ it was called. "Isn't that book supposed to be really depressing?" he said lazily, and stretched.

But she looked engrossed in it. "Maybe," she said thoughtfully, "but maybe not. I'm not done with it yet. Don't spoil it for me."

"Or else what?"

She shut the book, to his secret pleasure, and grinned at him. "Or else a fight to the death."

He waved the comment away with his hand. "You use that threat too often. It doesn't scare me anymore."

She perked up. "So it scared you before?"

He paused. "No. Bad wording. Whoops."

She flopped down onto the grass, her hair a haphazard mess tangled with blades of grass and the hollows of her neck. "Yeah, whoops," she said, and giggled.

Not for the first time, he thought about how much he enjoyed these moments. Akaya turned his eyes upwards at the sky. It was very blue. He felt his eyes closing. This was good napping-weather.

"Japan," Tachibana said suddenly.

Mrrmfgl. "What?" he muttered, eyes still closed.

"Just… Japan," she repeated. "I wonder what everyone's doing right now."

"Fighting zombies," he said, but then thought about Yukimura and Marui and Niou and Yanagi and Sanada and everyone. They weren't all on the same tennis team anymore, and now that he thought about it they probably wouldn't care, but—

But  _would_  they? Care that he was friends with Tachibana An?

They shouldn't, he thought, because why did it matter? They weren't in high school anymore. Everything was (he swallowed) over. Wasn't it?

What would it be like when they went back?

They were only in New York for a couple more months. Almost exactly two more months, actually. And then they would be going to their separate universities in Japan, doing their separate things.

Suddenly he wasn't very sleepy anymore.

But now Tachibana had fallen silent, was staring off into space pensively.

 _You're not supposed to be quiet_ , he wanted to tell her.  _You're supposed to—_

Be fun, be fireworks, be herself again.

He swung himself up and got to his feet, ignoring the sudden rush to his head. "Race you down Broadway?"

She turned to him and stared with those wide, grey eyes, looking bemused and mystified. But then she laughed and pushed herself off the grass. "Up to Columbus Circle. Once we get to Columbus Circle I always get lost. Why is there a random circle in the middle of Manhattan? It messes up my sense of direction."

"Less talk more running  _go_ ," he shouted, and propelled himself off the grass and down College Walk, and soon he was through the gates and on Broadway and Tachibana was laughing and chasing after him, and he was  _happy_. Thought fiercely,  _This feeling is mine_.

But that was confusing (what feeling why), so he pushed it aside and concentrated instead on the feeling of pavement pounding against his feet.


	9. October 16 - October 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for attempted assault in this chapter

**Lighters, 9**

_this night ain't for the faint of heart_

_Wicked Ones_ , Dorothy

* * *

It was early afternoon when it started. An had just finished volleying practice with a teammate, and Kirihara was due to finish his own practice any moment, when—

"An."

An steeled herself, and turned around with a smile. "Kenny."

He was smiling too, that slow and velvet smile. "Fancy seeing you here," he said, like it was any surprise anymore to run into her at the tennis center. Where the entire women's team was practicing. And watching their interaction.

She stared at him, and not for the first time tried to piece together this boy—this attractive boy, charming and strange. She wasn't sure what to make of him. He gave her so much attention—undeserved attention, really, because even she could feel it. And then there was the way she shut down around him. Kirihara was electrifying and Kenny was nullifying, overwhelming in an entirely different way.

(Sinking, she was sinking, she was  _drowning_  and it was cold and  _dark_ —)

"Are you doing anything this weekend?" he asked.

"Fighting crime," she responded automatically.

He laughed, and it was appealing and lovely and unsettling. "And is that going to take all night?"

"Maybe," she said. "Depends on what you're offering."

It was flirtatious, and she knew it was flirtatious, and—and she was just so  _curious_.

His smile turned sly, clearly pleased by her response. "A fun time," he said. "We're throwing a party. Same townhouse, same time. We'd love to see you there."

"Would you?"

He leaned in close, and then his eyes were barely two inches from hers. A little in spite of herself, her heart pounded. " _I_ would," he said. His voice was smooth, viscous.

She didn't flinch, didn't step back. From the corner of her eye, she saw a tall figure walk towards the courts. Kirihara. "Then I'll think about going."

Kenny beamed, stepped back. "Good." He waited until he was halfway across the court to shout, "It's a date!"

An froze, and exactly half of the room swiveled to face her, and the tall curly-haired boy who'd strolled over to her side.

"What's a date?" Kirihara asked, when Kenny had left.

"Nothing." She turned to him. He was flushed from practice, his hair slicked with sweat. "He invited me to a party at the end of the week, and I said I'd go." It wasn't like she'd been planning on keeping it secret. Not after the fiasco at Kenny's last party.

Kirihara stared back with unreadable eyes. "Oh." Then he yawned and stretched. "Figures. Who'd go on a date with you? Kenny's weird as hell, but he's not that desperate." He paused. "I think."

"And you're some Casanova?" she demanded.

"My middle name," he agreed gravely. "But don't go around telling people."

She crossed her arms. "And why not?"

"If people  _know_  how perfect I am, I won't be able to make friends," he said, like it was obvious. "A guy gets lonely without friends."

"I don't think you need to worry about that," she said drily, but in the back of head she wondered. Back home in Japan, Kirihara had a posse of people—the Rikkai boys, his tennis buddies.

But did he have a group here?

Most of the time it was just the two of them. And the tennis players idolized him, for sure, but she had never seen Kirihara so much as grab a coffee or walk to practice with any of them.

Then she brightened, and jabbed a finger at his chest. "Why don't you come with me? To the party."

He made a face, jabbed a finger right back at her. "Has anyone ever told you you're pushy?"

"All the time," she said, grinning. "Why?"

He snorted. "Why should I go to your dumb party?"

 _Because you're my friend,_  she wanted to say.  _Because it'll be more fun with you there_.  _Because—_ "Because you need to get out more," she said instead, very seriously. "Gosh, Kirihara, it's pathetic. I'm just looking out for your best interests."

For a second he didn't say anything, just watched her. Then, without any warning whatsoever, he grabbed her in a headlock and ruffled her hair. "I knew you cared," he said, and she could  _hear_  the grin in his voice.

"Let  _go_ ," she hissed, but couldn't quite keep herself from smiling either.

* * *

The weekend couldn't come quickly enough, and when they finally arrived at the party there was already a queue outside the door. Kirihara pushed his way to the front, dragging An along with him. The boys manning the door took one look at them and let them through. "Your reputation precedes you," An joked, walking inside.

Low, thumping music. It was that overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere again, the one she remembered from the first party she had gone to. Low lights and too many people, fighting for the same air. It almost felt primal.

"Of course," he said haughtily. "I run this town."

An rolled her eyes, not bothering to dignify that with a response, and marched ahead of him into the townhouse. In response, he draped himself over her back and rested his chin on her head. He did that a lot recently, and she tilted her head back to meet his eyes, amused and annoyed by his familiarity.

"Let's find the beer," he said, and veered toward the red Solo cups.

The party wasn't so bad after a couple of drinks. An was lucky enough to find people she knew, and soon Kirihara had been pulled away by some of the other college athletes on campus to discuss NCAA politics.

An cradled her drink—she was feeling a buzz, definitely feeling a little bolder, her muscles a little looser and her body a little warmer. But then she remembered the night at the club with Kirihara, drinking and laughing and spinning sidewalks and yellow taxicabs and she had to smile a little.

"What are you smiling about?" teased A-chan.

An blinked owlishly. "Taxis," she said, not entirely dishonestly.

B-kun laughed. "You're so weird, An. Have you been listening to us talk at all?"

An beamed. "I'm a firm believer in sleep-learning and audio-conditioning." But B-kun seemed unimpressed, if amused, so An made an effort to tune back into the conversation.

"…and I woke up and just saw her passed out in the hallway!" C-san was laughing, and the other students in the group joined in. "That's midterm season for you."

"Tell me about it," said B-kun. "But you're lucky. English students don't really get midterms, right? I do  _chemistry_. It's been orgo all week for me."

Everyone winced in commiseration. An joined in, "I can't even imagine… I took  _one_ chemistry—"

" _An_ ," said Kenny, and everyone in the group turned to look at him, and then at An. He was beaming. "I was looking for you. When'd you get here?"

A-chan nudged An forward with her foot. "Go on," she whispered conspiratorially. "Then tell us  _everything_."

"Thanks for inviting me," An said as A-chan literally kicked her out of the group. "This is a nice party."

"That's great to hear," Kenny said, in that smooth tone. "I wasn't sure if you enjoyed the last one. I heard something happened with you and Akaya, right?"

An smiled a little awkwardly. "Yeah, something like that. But we're okay now."

Kenny hummed. "Is that so?" He ducked his head down to look at her, and once again she noted that cultivated sweetness in his eyes, dark and opaque. "You two are together a lot. It could make me jealous."

"Get in line," she joked, but it sounded weak even to her ears. She wondered if he could tell that she was blustering. The only reason words were even forming was because she was kind of drunk—Kenny seemed to have a way of stealing speech from people. From her. "Form a fan club. Erect a portrait in my honor."

He held her gaze, completely motionless save for the slow, slow spread of his smile, velvet and sly. She was captivated by it—it was the motion of someone falling slowly and smoothly into quicksand, someone sinking gradually to the bottom of a river. It was slow and smooth, like the sluggish spread of liquid asphalt. Glossy and shining and pitch, pitch black. "I just might," he told her, and the words sounded so light on his tongue.

It was strange having him so close.

The first time she'd met him, she'd observed he was attractive—because he  _was_. Objectively so. Maybe a little conventionally so, and An hadn't thought much of it. But now, the more she interacted with him the more she thought his attractiveness came elsewhere. From that strange and unsettling feeling that formed at the bottom of her stomach, in her chest, behind her ribcage.

He leaned in even further, until his hair was brushing against her cheek. When he whispered, his breath was hot against her ear. "But I have the real thing right here."

When Kirihara teased her, taunted her, bantered with her, she always had a comeback. With Kirihara she felt something—something different, but something very familiar. Kirihara was green, was an electric storm, but Kenny—she wasn't sure  _what_  he was.

But she knew what attraction was, and this probably counted. Her heart pounded and her face felt hot when he whispered in her ear, but it was like she was frozen solid to the spot. No witty comeback, no flirtations coming to mind. She just felt… stuck.

Someone bumped into her while she stood there, and Kenny caught her by the shoulder to steady her. "It's really crowded," he said. "Let's go upstairs."

And it  _was_  crowded—it was suffocating. And deafeningly loud. An wondered what was upstairs, and with the alcohol emboldening her, there was no reason not to go. And for better or worse, she wanted to be alone for a few moments with this strange boy, this boy she wasn't sure she understood. "For a bit," she agreed, and followed him up the stairs.

"We try to keep the party downstairs," Kenny explained as they walked. "Upstairs is where our rooms are, and it gets messy when people come up here."

He led her into a room that was mostly empty, save for a couple of boys laughing over—whatever they were doing. One of them met Kenny's eye and promptly snuck out. The other one strode over, and promptly slung an arm around her shoulder. He was tall—probably over six feet, and lean, too. He was probably an athlete. The weight of his arm was heavy on her shoulders. "Who's this?" he said to Kenny.

"An," An said, and shrugged off his arm. "My name's An."

"You're really cute. Has anyone ever told you that?" The boy snickered, like it wasn't a compliment at all.

"This is Chris," Kenny said calmly. "He's on the basketball team."

"Nice to meet you," An said politely, and made to get up. This wasn't what she signed up for. "Kenny, I think I'm gonna—"

"Whoa, where are you going?" Chris demanded, and dragged her back down. Then he said, right into her face, "Don't be boring."

"Sorry," said Kenny. "I think he's a little drunk."

 _No shit,_  An wanted to say, nose crinkling at the intense smell of alcohol and whatever else that was in his breath. "Do you want to help me out here?" she said pointedly.

But then he smiled at her, that slow, sly smile. "You two should get acquainted more," he told her. "He's a good guy. Promise." And then he got up.

"I'm a good guy," Chris repeated, snickering more. "Promise."

"O… kay," An said slowly. "But where are you going?"

"I'm just going to go make a call," he assured her, waving his phone at her. "Be back soon."

"But—"

Chris grabbed her by the arm to turn her back to him, and reflexively An slapped his hands away. "Can you stop touching me?" she said frostily. "It's making me uncomfortable."

The boy nodded seriously, but two seconds later he was at it again, leaning to kiss her.

" _Stop_ ," she hissed, and pushed him away. "For fuck's sake."

"Aw, come on, sweetheart," Chris snickered, leaning close. His breath was hot against her ear. He reeked of alcohol. "Loosen up a little, yeah?"

In movies, the creep hits on the girl and the girl wails and cries, rigid and terrified, waiting for her prince charming to charge in with his white horse. Briefly she thought of Kenny, wondered why the fuck he'd left her there. If this were a movie, if he were her teenage dream, she imagined that he would step in, then. Push the boy off of her and rescue her and sweep her off her feet.

But Kenny wasn't there.

And An had never been a beauty queen from a movie scene.

"Go.  _Away._ " Her voice was taut with unconcealed anger. Anger at the boy, and anger at Kenny for leaving her alone with him. She shoved him firmly, stepping away. "And get sober."

He grabbed her arm. "I like it when—"

She whirled around and twisted it. "Like  _what_?" she hissed. "This?" She twisted harder, and then she heard laughter. She glanced at the door, which had been closed a second ago, and saw Kenny leaning against the doorframe of the room across the hall, arms crossed, observing from a distance. Amused. The smirk on his face threw her for such a loop that she forgot she was supposed to be getting the hell out of there. "What the hell?"

Chris cried out in pain, and she snapped her attention back to him. "The  _fuck_ , let  _go_."

She dropped his arm, regretting fiercely that she had ever decided to come to this party. "I don't care that you're drunk. Or high. Or whatever you are. This is not okay. You  _don't_  get to touch me if I tell you I don't want it, and you  _don't_  get to tell me when to stay and when to go. Now get out of here and don't touch me again," she said, and began to leave.

" _Hold_ it," and then a hand firmly grasped her shoulder, shoved her hard against the wall. She yelped in surprise, and then Chris was on her again, six foot something of drunken college boy. "What's your problem, huh?" He pulled her a few centimeters away from the wall, only to slam her against it again. "Don't I get an apology?"

An, despite the pain throbbing in her shoulder, laughed incredulously. "Are you kidding me," she demanded. She was talking too fast, not fast enough. "Are you fucking  _kidding_  me?  _Fuck_  no you don't get an apology. Where the fuck do you get off forcing yourself on women and shoving them around? You deserved a lot worse than—"

" _Hey,_ " he said, and suddenly he was too close, his grip on her too tight. An was fit, An was an athlete, but this boy was over six feet tall and built like a small boulder, and suddenly she remembered that she was supposed to be scared. "You shut up."

"No," she said, but even then she had to wonder  _what now, what do I do, how do I take on two hundred pounds of jock-boy-muscle_ —

"You know, I hate you feminist types," he said. "You think you're better than everyone else. You have to turn  _everything_  into a women's rights thing, don't you? You're just a self-righteous bitch, you know that, right?"

An forgot about her fear for a second, saw red. "You're an ignorant ass," she snarled. "You're part of the reason we  _need_  feminism in the first place."

And then he was on her again, angry and smothering her and  _she couldn't breathe_ , bit and kicked but it wasn't doing a thing, he wasn't doing a thing and she was trying to scream but he was muffling her, his hand on her mouth and what was he doing, where was he taking her—

From the corner of her eye she saw Kenny, leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe across the hall, just watching. He caught her eye and he smiled that slow smile, dark and velvet and she was drowning, she couldn't breathe—

She suspected she knew, then, why Kirihara kept telling her to beware of Kenny. Why the tennis players treated him like some sort of untouchable mystery. And she understood, then, the uneasy feeling she got whenever she was around him. Understood why she always seemed to shut down around him.

If Kirihara was electricity, Kenny was quicksand in a swamp, dark and muted and muffling. She couldn't understand why Kenny would do the things he did—couldn't even be sure what the things he did  _were_. But this appeared to be one of them, and that was all An needed to go on. All she needed to know. Because this went beyond being an observer powerless—or even unwilling—to act and intervene. This boy, the boy with the velvet voice and the dark, sly smile—he was watching, was  _enjoying_. And An didn't know why.

But Chris was moving, and that gave her an opening. When his hand loosened over her mouth, she screamed as loudly as she could, and when he whirled on her again, drunk and high on _something_ , she kneed him as hard as she could.

"You _cunt_ ," he snarled, and An's entire body was coursing with something like terror again.

Then she caught sight of curly black hair and bright green eyes.

 _Kirihara_.

His eyes met hers, then landed on the tall athlete manhandling her. His eyes widened, then narrowed, and she blinked because she had never seen them so bright, so fierce, and then— "Get your hands  _off her_!"

He must've pried Chris off of her ("Hey man, what are you  _doing_?" Chris protested) because then all of a sudden her body felt a thousand times lighter, and she leaned heavily against the wall, her hands scrabbling for something to grab onto. "What the  _fuck_  were you doing," he was shouting, and An was gasping for breath because  _air_ and the room was spinning, it was spinning and what was happening?

As she felt her knees buckle, she noticed Kenny again, who looked like he was about to sneak back into the room across the hall.

"Wait," she rasped. Her mouth felt dry. She was exhausted. She wanted to just go home, lie down and curl up and be  _home_ but— " _Kenny_ , wait."

Kirihara whirled around to stare at him. " _Kenny?_ What the fuck are you—" His expression cleared in understanding. "You were here the whole time?" he demanded. "Why didn't you  _do_  something?!"

"It was under control," Kenny said levelly, but there was something sly, something smug in his voice. It was that dark, sensuous voice again. The one that made An feel like she was being dragged underwater. Right now it made her feel ill.

"The  _hell_ it was under control," Kirihara snarled. "She was almost just—"

"They were just having some fun," he answered smoothly.

"It wasn't  _fun_ ," An said. She hated how her voice trembled. "He was choking me. And you were standing there and  _watching_. Kirihara, let's just go." She felt sick to her stomach.

But Kenny continued, goading him on. "The way you barged in like that wasn't cool, Akaya. Chris doesn't look very happy about it."

"I don't know what your problem is, but I will  _destroy you_ ," Kirihara said by way of response, his voice low and dark. "You look forward to that." Then he turned to face Chris, who was standing there somewhat incredulously, still clearly drunk and confused. "And  _you_."

"Yeah,  _me,_ " Chris mocked. "The fuck, man? This is none of your business. This little bitch was just about to apologize to me for something." He looked at An, who leaned back into the wall instinctively. "Come on, where were—"

"You're drunk," An answered coldly. "I'm leaving."

He crossed the distance between them in quick strides, and then his hands rapidly approaching again. "Come on—"

Kirihara took purposeful, dangerous paces toward him. "You touch her and my fist touches your face."

Chris leered. "You wanna apologize for her? It's a party, man. What's she to you?"

"Kirihara, let's  _go_ ," An insisted, and grabbed his arm.

Kirihara shrugged her hand away, and kept eyeing Chris. "She's my best friend," he said lowly. "You pick a fight with her, you fight with me." His lips parted in a smile, baring teeth, savage and predatory.

For a moment, the room seemed to go still.

Then Kirihara's arm swung back, fist swung forward and connected cleanly with Chris' jaw.

An saw it before she heard it, as Chris stumbled backwards, hand held defensively over his face. "The  _fuck_?  _What the fuck are you doing_?!"

"You tell me!" Kirihara sneered, and made to swing again.

A crowd was starting to gather, watching the scene. Beneath the sound of shouting, An heard murmurs, whispers. ("Isn't that Akaya?" "What's going on?" "Hey you've got to see this—")

 _Stop. Stop._ "Kirihara," An protested. "Kirihara, stop it!"  _Your scholarship._ "You can't!  _Akaya_!"

She had blurted out his first name before she even realized what she was doing. But in the split second his eyes flicked to her, surprised, Chris had readied himself and swung at Kirihara and no,  _no_ , stop it,  _"Stop it!"_  someone was screaming and oh that was her, that was her voice, wasn't it—

A crowd had gathered and someone pulled the two of them apart, Chris' hand slicked with something red and Kirihara's hand gingerly cradling his jaw. "What the hell is going on here," someone said, furious.

"Someone call the EMTs," a girl said. "Is there an EMT here?"

"I don't need any fucking EMT," Kirihara spat, and stormed off, dragging An with him. An, torn between annoyance at being manhandled for the second time that night and concern for the green-eyed boy who'd taken a punch to the face, followed begrudgingly. The crowd parted for them as they left, eyes wide and round and fascinated. An ducked her head to hide her face—this was going to be all over campus tomorrow.

When they had gotten sufficiently far from the townhouse, An twisted out of his grip and took a step back. He turned to face her, looking annoyed. "What?" he demanded.

She didn't look angry—and she wasn't angry, not at him. But she felt sick. "I could've handled that," she said.

His jaw slackened, incredulous. "Are you  _kidding_  me," he said. "He was literally choking you."

"I don't need you to come sweeping in to rescue me." Her voice was quiet. "It's always like this. That time at the party, when you tried to force me to leave. And just then."

"Should I have left you there to be attacked?" Kirihara demanded.

"No," she said. "I just… If I hadn't been drunk I could've…" Because what could she say? She had been unprepared, too tipsy to fight back as well as she could've. But could she have fought him off even if she had been totally sober? Even Kirihara had taken a hit to the jaw. Even so, the idea that she wouldn't have been okay had Kirihara not stepped in…

That was incredibly unsettling.

He sighed then, looking uncomfortable, and took her by the shoulder. "Hey, look at me."

She did. Green eyes, black hair.

Green lights, black night. When the wicked come to play.

"This has nothing to do with you drinking," he said. "Okay? I don't… I don't know how to have conversations about this stuff, but it's never your  _fault_  that some fucker is a piece of shit. You didn't do anything wrong and you didn't make any mistakes."

"You don't need to tell me. I know that," she said.

"I know you know that," he answered, but he sounded a little uncertain when he continued, "I just wanted to tell you." They walked for a bit in silence, the cold air biting against her skin. "And I know you could've handled yourself fine, okay?" The words sounded hard for him to say, stiff as hell. He sounded unbearably awkward. "But that guy was like. Huge. And you're pretty fit and not stupid and kind of independent I guess… but you're… what? Five feet all?"

"Five foot five and a half," she said, too busy being astonished by the fact that Kirihara had just told her she was  _fit and smart and independent_. "Who are you and what have you done with Kirihara Akaya?"

He ignored her. "Look, the point is…" He shifted from one foot to the other, wrung his hands a bit uncomfortably. "If you're five feet tall and not trained in like. Jujitsu. It's probably not smart to take on a six-foot tall basketball player. That's all there is to it. I helped out a friend who was outsized." The words were gruff, but then he looked at here and said, "And it's not a  _bad_  thing to need help sometimes. I wasn't thinking about—I dunno, you being a girl or whatever. I was thinking about you being my friend. We're friends. Friends help each other."

She thought of the way she had first met Momoshiro, when he had swung a punch at the hack tennis player who had been giving Ryuzaki a hard time. She thought of her brother wobbling on crutches, Kamio and Ibu rushing to support him. And she thought,  _That's probably right_.

His voice had been calm and polite, if not awkward, but then he sighed noisily and said, "So get off your high horse for once, yeah? Even  _you_  can't take down a fucking bodybuilder, imaginary Grand Slams and all."

It was an opening for a joke, an opening for banter, but An didn't have the energy for it. Instead she stopped walking, took a shaky breath, closed her eyes and pressed a single palm to her face. "Thanks," she said, quick and curt. It came out sounding like a knife on a chopping board, but An feared the word would tremble if she held it for too long. "For. You know." She bit her lip, kept her eyes closed, and tried to steady her breathing. In, out. In, out.

If he noticed the way her shoulders shook, the slight hiccup in her breathing, he didn't say anything. "Yeah," he said. "No problem."

They stood like that in the cold air for a few more minutes, in complete silence. She could still hear the sound of the party coming from down the townhouse, the sound of laughter and chatter and that low, deep bass. It was almost soothing, and she focused on it to steady her breathing.

The cold had nothing to do with the chill running through her veins.

"Is this why you warned me?" she said, eyes still closed, her words muffled into the palm of her hand. "About Kenny."

He was slow to respond. "I heard he'd been involved in some sketchy things," he said at last. "But there was never evidence, and he was never accused of being the guilty one. They were all rumors, and…"

And they'd probably been true.

She had been cornered in an empty room. Except—except the room hadn't been empty, because Kenny had been  _right there_ , and he hadn't done anything except watch. Just watching her struggling under the boy's grip, watched as she bit and kicked and screamed. He had looked so calm. So  _amused_. Content, even. The realization of that fact settled slow and deep into her stomach. She felt like a body tied to a ball and chain, sinking slowly into a lake.

Kirihara wasn't doing anything—nothing that she could see, anyway. She couldn't hear a sound, and for a second she thought maybe he had just walked away and left her there. It was so quiet.

But he wouldn't do that, and when An felt comfortable enough to lower her hand, she opened her eyes and saw him there, watching her watching him. "Is your jaw okay?" she finally said, feeling profoundly embarrassed.

He brought his fingertips to his jaw in remembrance, like he'd forgotten about it. "Yeah," he said, even as An saw the beginnings of swelling and bruising. "I guess so. It's not broken or anything." But he winced as he spoke, and An winced to see him wince.

"We should get you to a hospital," she said, surprised even as she said it.  _We?_ "You should get that X-rayed."

He looked surprised, too. "The hospital is near here," he said. "Like a block away. I'll be fine. You should get back to your dorm. Are you okay?"

 _Don't ask me that_ , she wanted to say.  _Don't bring up that party anymore. This night. Kenny._  The name made her feel sick. That feeling of drowning, sinking slow and deep, all dark and no air—

She turned her eyes away awkwardly. "I'll go with you," she said. "In case you do something else stupid along the way. You moron."

"Okay," he said. His voice sounded strange, but she tried not to think about it. "Okay."

The walk was brief and silent.

* * *

The hospital visit was quick—no dislocation, no broken bones, but  _don't go getting punched anymore and expect that to be sore for a while, you understand?_  Kirihara had nodded gamely, and promptly left for home in pursuit of ice and a cold towel.

An followed, not trusting herself to be alone.

Kirihara's apartment was just a ten-minute walk away, and it was stunning—a tall, modern building with its own  _gate._ An debated turning around the second she saw it.

"This is your apartment," she said flatly.

The lobby was beautiful too, marble tiled and shining. The elevator was modern and sleek, and when Kirihara pressed the button for the twenty-second floor An just stared at him with a look that probably conveyed something like  _I hate you so much_.

He turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, and An was confronted with a beautiful high rise apartment with a view overlooking the city. The room was practically empty, save for some basic furniture and necessities, a couple of magazines, and tennis equipment. Most notably, however, there was a set of large cardboard boxes sitting in a corner, completely unopened. "You live here," she said, and again it wasn't a question, but a statement asking for confirmation. Even a pocket-sized bag of roasted almonds here cost five dollars. How could he afford all of this?

"Yeah," he said, but he didn't sound proud at all. Was that embarrassment she was hearing?

The apartment was sleek and modern, with massive windows and metallic furnishings. Even the dining table was all metal and glass, and there would've been something industrial about the apartment were it not for a carefully cultivated artistic kind of aesthetic in the design of the place. Kirihara hadn't bothered to turn the lights on, but maybe it was better that way—the view of the city lights was completely unobstructed, and was bright enough to illuminate the room on its own. Turning the lights on would've felt like such a shame. "You live," she said, "in a fancy high rise apartment in Manhattan and you  _didn't tell me_. Are you rich or something?"

But even as she said it, she thought she must be wrong—some people, like Atobe, were obviously well off. But Kirihara bummed around arcade joints with her and raced her down Broadway. He—

"No way," Kirihara snorted. Then he shrugged, sat cross-legged on the floor. "The tennis scholarship pays for it. The Atobe Group, I mean. It's close to the campus and to the tennis center. I think they own the building."

 _Of course they do_ , thought An, and imagined Atobe in his absurd red trousers, folding his arms and smirking haughtily from Oxford.

"I'm so jealous," she said wonderingly. "But it really doesn't suit you at all." She plodded her way over to the kitchen, the hardwood floor cold beneath her feet. "Ice, ice…"

"Yeah," he said, and he sounded so uncomfortable. It wasn't a sound she was used to hearing in his voice, all confidence and blasé and teenage boy. "It doesn't."

She paused from wrapping the towel around the ice she'd found in the fridge, and looked at him. He continued, "It just has that vibe." He gestured with his hands, like that was supposed to convey anything. "Like the walls, and the furniture, and the window…"

"I guess it's pretty empty," An said. "But why haven't you unpacked?" She sat down next to him.

He gestured vaguely at the room—cold, hard, wooden, all corners and edges. It was bare and empty and she knew what he meant when he said, "It just doesn't feel like home, you know?" He shrugged. "Why waste my time unpacking when I'm just gonna leave in a couple of months, anyway? I'm here for tennis. That's it."

And she—she understood that. She understood the feeling of walking into a country that didn't belong to her, hearing a language that didn't speak to her. New York hadn't felt like home, not for a long time. Not even when she met Haruki. Not even when she joined the tennis club.

 _When had it started to feel like home?_  she wondered. When had she begun to treat New York as her city?  _Their_  city?

But she knew. All it took was the thought for her to know—it was after that first fight, after that first party. When she first realized that maybe it would be okay to be friends with Kirihara Akaya.

That was when she had first felt like the city could be hers—could be theirs—to conquer.

"You can't…" An faltered, then started again. "We'll make it feel like home." She touched his hand lightly. He tensed, and for a moment she thought he would pull away. But he didn't, and An held his hand like a small, tender thing, a tiny wild creature that would flee at the slightest hint of danger. She held it gently, her hand on top of his like a ghost of a touch in the dark, dark room. His hand was rough and calloused against hers, and her fingers traced the veins under his skin.  _There is electricity in those veins. In his blood_. "You should treat this as home. You're going to be here for the next two months.  _We're_  going to be here for the next two months, and then we're going to go back, but that's not how I want to treat my time here. I want to…" She faltered. "I don't know. I like being here. I like being just An. I like you when you're just Kirihara. I like  _this_." She smiled at him, a little helplessly. "Whatever this is. I want this to be home… for a while. Don't you?"

He was quiet for a while, just looked at her. Moonlight seeped into the room and wove in his hair, rested in the creases of his shirt and danced in his eyes, and An looked back at him, all black and green and silver, all rough edges and sharp corners. He was pale, so pale in that room, but just by being next to him, An felt a jolt of electricity, a spark. He was fire-fierce and fire-warm, he was thunderstorms and lightning and hurricanes, and he was looking at her.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I do too."

They sat there on the floor, and every moment felt like a thousand and one. Her heart waltzed behind her ribs,  _one_ -two-three,  _one_ -two-three,  _one-_ two-three, and there was such intensity in his eyes, electricity so hot it had burned away its color—electricity so hot, it had gone from green to scorching white, and it mingled with the moonlight dancing in his eyes, waltzing in time with An's heart ( _one_ -two-three,  _one_ -two-three,  _one_ -two-three…) until she couldn't tell which was which anymore. Until it was just one waltz, just waltzes and electricity and moonlight.

("Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same," someone said.)

Suddenly her face felt very hot, and she shoved the toweled ice at him. "Press this to your jaw," she said gruffly.

He took it, scoffing. "Some nurse you are," he snarked, but obediently held it to his face.

They sat in the dark, silent and exhausted.

"Video games," An said abruptly.

"What?"

"Video games," she snapped. "I'll share my games with you. So the rest of your stay here won't be…" She made vague gestures with her hands. "You know?"

He looked startled, and then he started to laugh, flinching from the pain even as he did. "I guess I'd be pretty okay with that," he said offhandedly. "But I bet your games are all dumb games. You're one of those dweebs who plays Bejeweled and shit, am I right?"

She had never been so offended. "First of all, Bejeweled is  _great_. Second of all, what the hell do you take me for?"

"Do you even play Grand Theft Auto?" he demanded.

"I am the  _queen_  of Grand Theft Auto."

"Is that an official title?"

"Yes," she said stubbornly.

He smirked. "Is it anything like your Wimbledon title?  _Imaginary?_ " he taunted.

They argued until morning, and An tried not to think about the feeling in her chest, hot and overwhelming. Tried not to think about how she'd like to just sit there with him forever. Some feelings, she knew, weren't meant to be picked apart.

("I  _am_ Heathcliff," someone said.)


	10. October 21 - October 31

**Lighters, 10**

_turn around, show me everything I might miss_

_No Faith In Brooklyn_ , Hoodie Allen

* * *

The winds were changing -- literally. An shivered a little. The end of October always came with a sudden chill in the air, but the chill she was feeling had nothing to do with the weather.

_“Hey, that’s her.”_

Columbia University was a big school, but not big enough for last week’s incident to have escaped notice. Kenny, for better or worse, was a hit on campus, and Kirihara a mystery. All she had wanted was to have her friends and her personal life, a good education, a good career, lots of dogs. She knew what it was like to be noticed. She had been no wallflower back home, and in the tennis circuit her brother was no unknown - but back then that had been attention, positive or negative, as a result of merit, of professionalism. If there was drama, it was about tennis. Not about… this. 

She found herself shrinking a little into herself as she walked to the library, eyes on her like spotlights. Their gazes should have made her face warm, her body heat up, but as embarrassed as she was, she was infinitely _colder_ thinking about that night. That ice-cold feeling of watching Kirihara take a hit to the jaw. The ice-cold feeling of thinking, _This is it_ , as she struggled against the grip of that basketball or lacrosse or whatever player he had been.

And then she found herself imagining that night with Kirihara in his room, laughing and playing video games until early morning, even as he cradled his swollen jaw and she flashed back to the scene at the party, like a movie she was watching of someone else’s life. Even with those memories, she thought back to that electric feeling, moonlight on his skin, on the sharp corners of his cheekbones, moonshine tangled in that black mess of hair. She thought, and she imagined, and something poked at her thoughts from the back of her subconscious, but she forced it down, down, down.

It was the kind of day in October that was cloudy and yet not quite -- she could see the sun peeking out, but peeking from _what_ , she couldn’t tell. The sky was some shade of blue-grey, some shade of steel, and it glinted where the sun hit, like a knife being welded. Steely and hot, opaque and unwelcoming.

_“She’s an exchange student from Japan.”_

_“I heard they went to the same high school.”_

_“I heard junior high.”_

_“They’ve known each other for ages.”_

She pushed open the doors to the library. They were heavy, and she had always wondered why -- shouldn’t doors to places like libraries and academic buildings be lighter? When she thought about people who spent time at universities, she thought of spindly academic nerds and old college professors. Surely nobody in that pool of people had the upper body strength to push open heavy doors.

The interior of the library always gave the impression of a photo in sepia -- all golden and faded brown tones, all old paintings and marble staircases and faint golden light bulbs, hanging in torches and chandeliers, doing their best to mimic the fire-lit hallways of ages past. All whispers of Descartes and Freud, of Geertz and Levi-Strauss, of Newton and Leibniz, Russell and Frege. She took a second to step back and look up at the endlessly high ceilings, just floors for someone else, substrata for the PhD students on the top floor toiling away at their dissertations.

_“I think Kenny met her at a party?”_

_“What, like that party?”_

_“Akaya punched him flat out. Because he was talking to her.”_

_“Wow, who knew he was so possessive?”_  

She wished she could tell them they were wrong, wished she could tell them just how wrong they _were_. But correcting them would mean engaging with them, and that was a step she was not ready to take, a line she wasn’t ready to cross.

She could hear their whispers like they were spoken directly into her ear -- maybe because she was actively listening, on some subconscious level, constantly checking to see if people were gossiping about her, constantly checking out of some masochistic tendency for the awful things people were saying.

It was approaching Halloween, and it couldn’t come fast enough -- she wanted, more than anything, to be anybody but herself. 

“An?”

 _Oh god._  

She considered looking down, looking away, just turning around and walking away. The voice itself gave her a sick sort of feeling, made her want to curl up in a ball or bathe in chlorine.

But instead she looked up and met Kenny’s eyes. They were dark, they were abysses that stared back. Every time she looked in those eyes she imagined suffocating, imagined sinking in a swamp, dark and alone. 

He smiled at her, that sly, knowing smile.

She stared with steely blue-grey eyes, and walked straight past him.

* * *

All Kirihara would say about the situation was “I told you so.”

It was only because she knew he didn’t mean it in a mean way that she let it slide, because really, how was _she_ supposed to know that Kenny was some psychotic sadistic little piece of shit just based on Kirihara’s vague and vaguely disdainful commentary?

But she was a little bothered. She was a lot bothered. When she slept at night, she still saw his face in the corner of her mind’s eye, all wicked grins and black, black eyes, an opaque screen where his heart should have been, black hole in place of his mind.

She wondered if this was why Kirihara had tried so hard to keep them apart, if really he had known, if really he had told her so. She wondered what would have happened had she not crept down the rabbit hole. It felt suddenly that she had opened a door she couldn’t close.

* * *

She shouldn’t have been surprised that it would come to a head on a tennis court.

It was a Tuesday and it was the tennis center and An was tired, so tired. Tired of the whispers, tired of the stares, and just tired of being there. Tired of having to fend people off, explaining at first and then eventually realizing it wasn’t worth it, realizing the rumors spread no matter what she did.

Kirihara was watching her from the stands while she rallied lightly with one of the girls. She could feel his gaze hot against her back, and she wondered what he was thinking. The center was dead silent save for the _pok_ of the ball. All eyes were on two people in the room.

And suddenly they were on a third.

“Hey, Akaya.” 

An looked incredulously at the speaker, who had just sauntered to the stands where Kirihara stood. Kenny had that sly, sly smile on his face, silky and swamp-water and—and today, just a little too tense. “Hey Akaya, let’s play a match.” 

The entire tennis center waited for Kirihara to brush him off, but all he did was stand there. It was strange for An to see him so still. In her mind he was the _essence_ of movement -- was quick grins and fancy footwork and motion. But in that moment he was almost a statue. In that moment she wasn’t even sure if he was looking at Kenny.

But subtlety was a foreign concept where Kirihara was involved, and even less with Kenny involved. Kenny marched right over, and looped an easy arm around Kirihara’s shoulders.

Awkward didn’t even begin to cut it.

Kirihara’s eyes followed Kenny as he moved, and when Kenny draped his arm around Kirihara, An genuinely thought Kirihara looked disgusted. She thought of other instances in which she’d seen Kirihara look that way -- _furious_ , red, brilliantly red. And she found herself holding her breath.

But Kirihara didn’t move.

“You fucked up,” he said, his voice low and steady. His eyes were green like electric ice, conducting energy under something hard, something cold.

Kenny seemed taken aback for a moment. But then he melted back into that easy smile. “What, last week? That was _ages_ ago, man. You’re not still upset, are you?” And then he laughed, and An’s stomach clenched because god, _god_ —

“I’ll play a match with you,” Kirihara said, and suddenly it was like everyone’s jaws had dropped. “One set.”

Kenny beamed. “Now we’re talking.” 

“No,” Kirihara said. “We’re not.” And then he turned on his heel and walked to the baseline.

An stood there and tried to process. The girl she’d been rallying with had dropped any pretense of practice entirely; she was hovering by the net and watching as Kirihara and Kenny grabbed the court adjacent to theirs. 

Someone grabbed the umpire’s chair and began going through all the necessary motions, but no one was listening. Everyone was holding their breath, watching. Just watching.

“Akaya’s serve,” Kenny said, and walked to the center line.

Kirihara said, “Okay,” and reached for a ball in his pocket.

An blinked, heard, a _pok_ , and then it was over.

Silence. And then: “Fifteen-love,” the umpire said, sounding a little unsure.

“...what?” someone whispered. An’s mouth fell open — she hadn’t even seen him _move_. When did the ball leave his hand?

Kenny looked — _startled_ wasn’t the word for it. He wiped the lost look off his face and dug his heels in, settled in more to his stance — but then Kirihara served again, slowed it for the audience’s benefit. “Thirty-love.”

One game to love, two games, three games, four. People were starting to whisper, and then Kenny called out, with that wicked grin, “You know, you really should join the team. If last week is the only way to get your attention, maybe I should try it again.”

Kirihara froze, and An felt a sudden chill shoot through her body, ice in her veins.

“ _What_ ,” Kirihara started, “did you just say?”

Kenny’s smirk spread. “I think you heard me pretty clearly.” He turned his head slowly to make eye contact with An, still holding her racquet on the next court over.

That was it. It was over. She was done. Any ice she felt melted in the face of boiling rage, and she stormed off her court and onto his with her racquet, ready to knock the son of a bitch out, but then Kirihara called, “Stop, you idiot.”

She swiveled to look at him, astonished and incredibly annoyed. “What the hell do you mean?” she demanded. “If anyone in the history of the universe has it coming, it’s this punk!”

He gave her a _duh_ look, which she assumed was meant to express, _Do you really want to get suspended for assaulting a student at the fitness center?_ Which, fair enough, but -- “Throwback to that time you punched that kid in the face,” she muttered, and backed down.

Kenny watched all this happen with the air of someone who was vaguely uncomfortable but also vaguely amused. “And what are _you_ going to do, Akaya?” he asked sweetly. “Beat me in a tennis match? Start a fight with me the way you did to my poor friend at that party, and get suspended?”

Kirihara didn’t say a thing, just watched him with the look of someone who wanted nothing more than to judo-flip someone off a bridge. Finally he said, his voice taut with something, “I am going to play tennis,” and served. 

An watched him bounce the ball a couple of times, toss it into the air and arc back. There was something vaguely familiar about the way he was moving, something she recognized but couldn’t name, and when the ball finally bounced, she knew. 

It was some spin on the Knuckle Serve, and it dug into the court where it landed before bouncing up to whiz past Kenny, about a millimeter away from his nose. Kenny stumbled back and the spectators fell into silence -- they hadn’t seen his serve before, An realized. They hadn’t seen any of his signature shots.

The serve she was witnessing now was something else -- not a watered down version of the serve she knew, the serve that had tormented her for years in middle school, but something even sharper, even more refined, more accurate and controlled. The balls flew past Kenny, a millimeter from his cheek, his chin, his ear, one after the other, until Kenny no longer knew where to stand. It didn’t matter, she wanted to tell him. Kirihara’s aim was impeccable.

The game was borderline violent, and yet fell short of any sort of actual physical harm. But An looked at Kenny’s face, thought back to her own night at that party, and knew that physical wasn’t the only way you could hurt somebody.

The rest of the match wasn’t much to watch -- Kenny could barely serve on his turn, and Kirihara slammed them back with the same vindictive control with which he served. On the last point, Kenny lobbed the ball a bit high -- from the look on his face, it hadn’t been intentional. Kirihara, without so much as a hitch in his breath, ran and went for it -- a slam that landed just an inch from Kenny’s feet, with a vicious bounce. It sent him stumbling back, and he landed flat on his back, an expression of… _something_ on his face. Something like shock, something like fear. Something like he was too emptied to express anything at all.

Kirihara stepped up to the net. Did not extend his hand, did not say a word. He only looked down, where Kenny was still crouched on the court. His eyes were green like lightning storms, his mouth taut, that border between control and rage wearing wire-thin. It was the coldest An had ever seen him, and even then he was unbelievably _hot_ in his anger -- anger like firestorms, just barely contained behind a transparent, ice-cold wall. Not for the first time, An remembered how Kirihara had earned the reputation he had; why people were afraid of him. Not for the first time, she remembered why she found Kirihara dangerous.

“This game,” he said. “Not just this game, but all your games. They stop.”

And then he walked away.

Or so she thought, but he walked away and turned to _her_ , languidly loped toward her where she still stood on the next court over, arms folded behind his head, racquet dangling carelessly from his hands, like the most harmless boy in the world.

An watched him for a second in silence as he made his way over. This boy who could destroy a person so casually, and then return to being that lazy, languid electric-boy in the blink of an eye. Those two personalities.

She thought, _Yukimura Seiichi_ , and was a little afraid.

But then he grinned at her, that friendly and thoughtless grin, and she couldn’t help it -- she grinned back. “How was I? Tennis prowess unmatched, am I right? Maybe I should fight Atobe for that title.”

An laughed, forcing down residual nervousness. “You show-off. That was some scary stunt. I think you should be yourself for Halloween.”

“The plebs are already blessed with me in my natural form on a day to day basis. I want to change it up.”

An whistled. “Wow, maybe you really _should_ fight Atobe for Biggest Head.”

He punched her lightly in the arm. It was a gentle tap, and again she marveled at how somebody could be so gentle with her, and so savage elsewhere. It was confusing, it was frightening, and it wasn’t something she wanted to think about.

* * *

“So what are you going to be for Halloween?” Akaya asked. They had been walking in slightly uncomfortable silence for a couple of minutes now, on their way back to campus from his match with Kenny. Small efforts at conversation had gone mostly badly, with short one-word answers and half-hearted replies. He didn’t really blame her… but it was a long way home to walk in silence.

Tachibana shrugged. “I dunno. Honestly not really feeling the whole dress-up thing.”

In his mind, he was rolling his eyes. _Jesus Christ,_ say _something_ , he wanted to tell her, shake her, shake some life back into her. What the hell was she staring into the distance for? What was she thinking? What was going on in her head? 

Why couldn’t he get there?

Outwardly, he shrugged and folded his arms behind his head. It was his go-to pose for blase-ness, and usually worked pretty well. “Well, _I’m_ going as a tennis-playing super-demon-hero." 

 _That_ got her attention. She stopped walking and gaped for a few seconds, and then to his pleasure, started cackling. “ _What_ ,” she wheezed. “How… what… how did you even come _up_ with… _what_?”

He grinned. “It’s perfect, am I right?”

“You know what? The tennis-playing part, I get. I might’ve even seen it coming. But where did you get evil superhero from?”

“Superheroes, because they have powers,” he said in his best _duh_ voice. “Demon, because normal superheroes are so _boring_. All about goodness and saving the world and shit. You need to add some edge to that stuff, y’know?” 

Tachibana quirked an eyebrow and smirked. “Because you’re so complex, am I right?”

He nodded sagely. “I am wise and complicated beyond my years.”

She started laughing again, and he caught himself smiling a little. It wasn’t something he had really thought about, but he realized he liked the sound of her laugh. It sounded like sunlight. “I guess that’s pretty solid,” she said. “You do you. But how the hell are you going to dress up as… what was it? Super tennis demon hero?”

“Tennis-playing super-demon-hero,” he corrected. “I’ve got a rough idea of what I want… but I’m gonna wait for inspiration to hit when I actually go looking for a costume.”

“You don’t have a costume yet? Wow. Pretty disorganized for a tennis-playing super-demon-hero. People probably die all the time in the town you protect.”

“You don’t have one either!” 

“But I wasn’t planning on dressing up!”

“Well, that’s worse. Maybe people get hurt in my town, but at least my town is exciting. Your town just sounds lame.”

“Takes lame to know lame,” she sang. 

“Takes _wise_ to know lame,” he said, shaking his head and grinning, “and I’m way wise.”

“ _Way,_ ” she agreed, laughing.

“That sounded sarcastic.” He brought a hand to his heart and made a hurt expression. “Tell me that wasn’t sarcastic.” They bantered like that a little more, until he piped up, “So why aren’t you dressing up this Halloween? Isn’t that the whole point of Halloween?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really want to do anything this year, y’know? Thinking it’s gonna be a stay-at-home-and-watch-horror-movies kind of night.”

 _But why_ , was on the tip of his tongue, but he suspected he knew.

Which only made him wish he had beaten that scumbag into the ground harder.

“There’s a costume shop a few blocks that way,” he said suddenly. “Let’s go.” 

He started to run, but she didn’t move, and stood there with her arms crossed looking annoyed. “I _just_ told you I don’t want to dress up.”

God, why was she being so touchy? “I didn’t say you have to dress up,” he said, which he thought was a pretty damn good point. “I just said there’s a costume store and we should go.”

She was quiet for a second, and then said softly, “I’m really not planning on going to any parties this year. Not for a while. Not because… just… I’m just not really in the partying mood these days.”

He watched her, five-two and arms folded, arms crossed, arms guarded over her chest and protecting her ribs, her heart. He felt his own heart clench something fierce, fiercer in frustration over not knowing what to say. “Then don’t go,” he said at last. “Don’t party. Just go to a costume shop with me. Hang out with me on Halloween.”

She tilted her head to one side, watched him ponderingly. “But don’t _you_ want to party on Halloween?”

He shrugged. “Not really. It’s a bunch of strangers in costumes. There are cooler things to do.”

“Like hang out with me?” she joked.

She’d meant it offhandedly, but he found himself really thinking about it, and was surprised and unsurprised by the answer he came to. “Yeah,” he said honestly. He fixed her with what he hoped was a convincing, convinced stare. She stared back with wide blue-grey eyes.

He didn’t know what to do when she looked at him like that. He didn’t know what she expected him to do.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

* * *

 

Halloween night was pitch black.

An peeked out her dorm room window from where she sat and saw night, heard the screams and laughter of other college students decked out in their costumes, ready for the evening festivities. Behind her, Haruki was staring into a mirror, applying makeup and putting the finishing touches on her costume. An was dressed up too, but unlike Haruki, was splayed lazily across her bed.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Haruki asked, with the voice of someone who already knew what the answer would be. She looked at An a little exasperatedly, who looked back innocently. “We _match_. You’re really going to make me go alone?”

To be fair, they _did_ match. An had decided to join Haruki in vampiredom, and Haruki looked very cute in her black dress and fake blood. But -- “Vampires are a dime a dozen,” An argued. “There’ll be hundreds. _Hundreds_! You’ll be fine. No need for me to be there. Go be with your fellow vampires. Start a club. Start a cult. Join the revolution, Haru, _join the revolution_.” An waved her red-dye-stained hands. 

Haruki rolled her eyes. “I’m off, then.” But before she closed the door, she ducked her head in one more time. “Will you be okay alone?”

An smiled. “I won’t be alone.”

* * *

“Get on board, loser,” Kirihara told her twenty minutes later, shoving her onto the subway train. “We’re going exploring.”

She laughed. “Have you ever seen Mean Girls?”

Kirihara pulled a face. “No. What’s that?”

“Oh. Oh _god_. Oh god, Kirihara, your life is about to be forever changed." 

Even as she bantered with him, she couldn’t help watching him a little. He looked no different from usual, save for the shield he was carrying and the demon horns perched on his head. And she had seen him countless times in his athletic attire. Since they were thirteen, really. She’d seen him at his lankiest, at his knobbiest, at his worst. There was nothing new about Kirihara in athletic shorts. 

But somehow… 

Maybe it was because it was Halloween night. Maybe it was the air of mischief, seeing various partygoers on the 1 train dressed in their costumes, braced for a night of revelry in downtown Manhattan. But Kirihara did look different that night, she swore.

They got off the train several stops later, somewhere far downtown, farther than she’d ever been. They were right on the cusp of the island, and they started walking.

“What’s the plan?” An asked, as they waited for the light at a crosswalk.

Kirihara’s grin showed teeth. “There is no plan.” He pointed his shield at the sky, glittering with skyscrapers and city lights. “We explore. We conquer. We steal candy from children.” An snorted, and he turned to her. “I have a _reputation_ to live up to, Tachibana.” He brandished his shield in her face, and she shoved him back. “Tennis-playing super-demon-heroes only show up once a year.” 

An feigned a confused look. “Then what are you the other 364 days in the year?”

He swiped at her head -- she dodged. “I am my alter ego -- Kirihara Akaya, tennis player by day, superhero by night. Only on Halloween am I both.” 

“No, no, the _demon_ part. Where’s that?” Damn height. If he were only two feet shorter, she would have swiped those demon horns right from the top of his head.

Kirihara mused, “I always have been told I’m a menace to society.” He bopped her on the head.

As she reached up to cover her head in indignation, she realized how closely they were walking -- their shoulders almost brushing, her hands almost close enough to be laced with his. Had they always walked that closely? Or was she only starting to notice it now? 

She tried to think back to a time when she had still been An of Tachibana, An of Fudomine, An of Seigaku and wherever else. Back to a time when the name _Kirihara Akaya_ had registered something like fear and disgust and repulsion. Back when Kirihara was Other. She looked at him now, his eyes green and bright, brighter than the sterile skyscraper lights that seemed usually to drown out everything else -- nothing could drown out that greenness, she knew, _nothing_ could come close.

As they walked, she thought about everything that could have been -- what if they had been high schoolers and _friends_ , what if they had been able to walk home from school everyday, go to the arcade, play tennis on the street courts? What if they had been children together, grown up together, navigated teenagerdom together?

Now they were eighteen going on nineteen, dancing on the cusp of adulthood. Was this better? Or was she just thinking of things she had missed through no fault of her own?

She stopped walking and looked at him, the back of his head, the black curls ruffling under the harsh October breeze, and thought of electric riffs and delicious pop music and hot chocolate on a cold day and fairy lights -- _fairy_ lights. That was what this felt like, she realized. Surrounded by skyscrapers, a million office buildings lit up with New York workaholics, silent and brilliant evidence of the city’s livelihood like fairy lights, too distant to feel real, too distant to feel like anything but magic.

Kirihara stopped walking too, and turned to look at her. They were silent for a few moments, and An let herself stop thinking.

For a few seconds, all she could hear was that cold October wind. All she could feel was the ruffle of her winter jacket hood against the back of her head.

All she could see was him.

(Those eyes were so _green_.)

His lips parted, like he wanted to say something. But then he closed them again, closed his eyes to blink, and when he opened them again he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking to his left. “We’re here,” he said.

They had arrived at the Williamsburg Bridge.

An stopped to admire for a moment -- that grand walkway, this city of glass and cast iron, lazily reaching over midnight water to touch Brooklyn. But Kirihara started walking, his pace languid and slow, and An found her feet moving as well.

There was just something about the bridge at night. It was dark and there were trains, there were cars. But mostly there was just… _them_. Just her and him, his eyes aglow like lighters on a Halloween night. She looked at him and thought of elven things, of mischief-makers, the real orchestrators of tricks and treats. Night air clung to him like it belonged to him, like the night was made for him. His t-shirt rippled against his skin, his shoes scuffed the pavement, and his hands grazed the metal of the bridge, brushed against red rust decades older than he. 

Faintly, An could hear the sound of revelers. In Brooklyn, in Manhattan. She had never been in a liminal state like this one before, between two great parts of an even greater city. Just a girl on a bridge, standing hundreds of feet above river-water. Standing hundreds of feet above reality. 

With a boy made of electricity. 

She fought the sudden urge to grab his hand—what did it feel like to touch electricity, she wondered—and instead skipped ahead of him, spinning a little along the way. She didn’t have to turn around to know he was watching her amusedly, and focused instead on the feeling of autumnal air passing between her fingers. Suddenly she was so confident that there were fairies in the air, elven things and mischief-makers, and she was dancing with them, offering herself to them for the night. 

Another boy might’ve called her strange, or lagged behind and been content with just watching An twirl around to silent music and swipe at the air. But Kirihara—Kirihara lowered into a crouch, then lunged forward into a spring, and he was running and running and then he jumped, reached his arm high up, his fingers trying to touch something way beyond his reach. An stopped twirling just long enough to meet his gaze, and he explained, a little breathless, “I was trying to catch a star.” 

 _Don’t you know_ , she wanted to say, _that you already have them?_ That there were lights in his eyes. That she could see the entire Manhattan skyline reflected in them if she looked hard enough—so bright against the pitch black night. One World Trade and the Empire State Building and One Bryant Park. She could see it all. 

The wind was picking up a little, ruffling his hair, which was just long enough to start falling into his eyes. He needed a haircut, but An wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. Not when curly black wisps were falling over his lashes, hiding and unveiling electric-green like something flickering, like fireflies in the night. 

There were three feet between them, and An barely realized that she was crossing the distance between them, in sure and steady strides. Kirihara stood still, did not move, and faintly she thought that was quite unlike him, quite unlike this electric boy. And then she realized that even when he was standing still he was _moving_ somehow, electrons barely visible to her eye, visible only because they were his, and these days she swore she saw something in him that she’d never seen before, swore that there’s something about him she’d never noticed before. That underlying thrum of energy, that pull, the thrill of electricity that ran through her when he met her eyes, like touching static on a dry winter night. 

But the night was autumn, and he was not static. He was motion, even as he stood still for her, waited for her to approach. He stood there and did nothing, only watched her with green lighters, his expression veiled and obscured by passing shadows. 

It faintly occurred to her that the night had been nothing but running around. No serious conversation, no heart to hearts. Barely any words at all, she realized. What was the last thing that had been spoken? 

He had been catching stars. 

They had been walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, An had been dancing with Halloween fairies, and he had been catching stars.  

And damn, if that wasn’t something. 

 _Don’t you know that I…_ And then she didn’t know how to finish that sentence, because what? What should he have known? That when she was with him, she _felt_ something? Something indescribable, intangible, something she couldn’t name. And every time she got close to it, she could feel herself running away. She knew, somehow, that this was the sort of feeling she couldn’t pin down, shouldn’t pin down. Some feelings were not meant to be defined. There was magic there, magic in whatever she was feeling, and science be damned, she wanted to believe in something. She wanted to believe in whatever this was. 

 _Whatever souls are made of_ , _his and mine are the same_. The moment those words flashed through her mind, she knew they were true. She knew they were true, and she didn’t know what it meant, what souls were made of, what it meant that theirs were the same. But she knew they were, and for now, that was enough. 

She was still walking towards him, those sure and steady steps, and when she finally paused she was only inches away, peering up at him. 

He didn’t move. Just stared back at her with unreadable, brilliant eyes, hidden behind dark curls.  

An’s arm moved without her registering. Slowly she reached a hand up to touch his hair. It was softer than it looked, soft to the touch, and for a second she let it glide against the skin of her fingertips. 

Kirihara’s breath hitched. 

Then, with a slow twist of her wrist, she gently brushed the hair back and away from his eyes, tucked it behind his ear. Her fingers grazed his temple, the tip of his ear. His skin was hot to the touch. 

And then she let her hand fall back to her side. 

One second, two seconds—of complete silence, nothing but the sounds of cars and air and faintly, faintly, the sound of revelers, reminding them that Halloween was still in full swing. 

It occurred to her that perhaps she should have been embarrassed. That in a few minutes, her face would flush and she would be blustering excuses. What was that? What had possessed her? 

But before embarrassment had a chance to settle in, Kirihara closed the distance between them with one step forward and his arms around her, and suddenly her face was buried in his chest, against his shoulder, breathing in something like oak and pine and teenage boy. His hug was firm, his arms sturdy around her shoulders, his cheek warm where it rested against her head. His arms felt like they had been crafted for her. Like he was born to have her against him like that, and An suddenly and fiercely did not want to move. Did not want to leave. 

What was happening?  

They must’ve only spent a few moments like that, but An had trouble deciding whether the embrace felt very long or ended too quickly. Kirihara stepped back, his hands still resting on her shoulders as he pulled away from her, and at her slightly open-mouthed expression, said very seriously, “Hey.” 

_Hey._

She stared, and he stared back, like he was trying to communicate the secrets of the universe to her through telepathy. He looked so serious, so concentrating that for a moment she was sure he’d succeed. But all she could hear was the pounding of her heart in her eardrums. 

Then the moment passed and he grinned, released his hand from her shoulder. “You looked cold.” 

The spot on her shoulder where his hand had rested did indeed feel cold now, like something had been taken away from her. And before An had a chance to register the moment, Kirihara had taken off running, sprinting in the direction of Brooklyn, like some sort of eternally summer hurricane. An stood there, wide grey eyes staring after him. When Kirihara finally turned around to meet her gaze, she saw that his eyes were wild, were aglow with something lovely, something mischievous, something elven and _trick or treat_ and wasn’t that what this night was all about? “You coming?” he shouted.  

She blinked, in hopes that blinking would clear her vision somehow, would rein her in and remind her where she was, what was happening, what had just passed. But it was hard to be stoic, hard to be pensive, hard to do anything but reach for stars and give herself over to elves and thieves in that moment. Too much that she couldn’t afford to miss.

So she let the wind mess her hair, let her laugh carry in the air and over the river. She let the soles of her feet hit pavement as she ran ran _ran_ , propelled herself away from liminality and towards the electric boy on the other side of the bridge. 

Towards Brooklyn.  


End file.
